


Drawings on the Cave Wall

by Unloyal_Olio



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Dubious Consent, F/M, Feral Behavior, Monsters, Mount Weather, Pregnancy Kink, Reapers, Spoilers for Season 1, Violence, Warning: mentions of infertility, extremely aggressive dominant female, feral Bellamy, feral Clarke, however, humiliation of bad guys, non-consensual genetic manipulation, not bestiality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:14:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unloyal_Olio/pseuds/Unloyal_Olio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Besides Project Cerberus for grounder men, Mount Weather has a separate experiment going on for women: Project Venus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I felt like writing Het. In particular, I felt like writing a very dommy (but not d/s dommy - rules, pah!) female and so this ridiculous plot came out of it. Just so we're clear, everything is going to go nuts (read: lots o'pr0n) and then they're going to have to go back to figuring out how to cope with that when they're normal again. That's the basic plot. 
> 
> Not beta'd because my beta has not watched the show, but uh, if you haven't watched _The 100_ , the pilot isn't that great, but then it really picks up. This show pulls zero punches. It's like _Lost_ with teenagers and a strong _Lord of the Flies_ element. Bellamy is hot. Kane is hot (dontlieyouthinkittoo). I love it.
> 
> This goes AU at the beginning of Season 2 more or less when Clarke gets taken to the mountain along with the rest of The (remaining) 100 but refuses to accept the cookies and tea because it's all too good to be true on Mount Weather. For Bellamy, this starts after he wakes up after the explosion. The timing is not perfect, so I apologize for any excessive liberties.
> 
> See End Note for Full Warnings.

Clarke is in the cage with Anya when Dr. Tsing finds her. A syringe is in Tsing’s left hand, a gun in the right, and all that Clarke hears is, "You stupid idiot. Now you’re going to have to join them," before Anya’s scream pierces her eardrums and Clark’s vision pops like a bubble.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Dr. Cage Wallace introduces himself as the President’s son. Black hair, too pale skin. He smells like antiseptic but his smile is dirty. When he picks up a piece of Clarke’s hair, she’s too sedated to pull away. 

Pinching the strand, he twists it back and forth before stroking her cheek with it. He’s saying that Tsing wants her blood but he wants all of her. There aren’t enough young, fertile girls. Does she know that? "The radiation exposure is slowly weeding them out, frying their ovaries. You know Maya? Not passing on any genetic material if her latest test results are anything to go by."

Clarke doesn’t know what any of that means. Her head is pounding and when she tries to sit up, restraints catch on her ankles, arms, and waist.

Cage drops her strand of hair to hold up a syringe. "We need perfect mothers. We need mothers who can not only survive the radiation but defend our young in face of danger. And yet," he presses and a drop falls from the needlepoint, "it’s also nice if they’ve got tits and ass. And it’s especially nice if they’re eager. If they want it all of the time." He leans down to whisper in her ear, "I hope your results are as promising as Anya’s."

The needle pricks her neck. The tingling starts immediately, but it’s when her skin boils that she starts to scream.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

When Bellamy wakes up, his ears are ringing, and dried blood crusts his eyelashes. It takes a lot of blinking to make out that Finn is still at his side.

"You okay—" He cuts off in a choke. Finn’s dead. A chunk of his skull is missing. The smell is awful. Burnt flesh and rocket fuel. Bellamy’s empty stomach heaves.

When his airway is clear again, he looks around, scanning for any movement, but no birds sing. No twigs crack. There’s only the distant roll of the wind through the trees and he knows instinctively that he’s the one drawing breath in this acre.

Outside the drop ship, there are bodies. Inside, the ship is empty. He doesn’t let himself ask why. There’s spare food in the first aid kit, and it’s only after he’s downed a bottle of water, a double dose of pain meds, and a whole bag of jerky that he allows himself to ask the question:

Where the fuck are his friends?

Then, as he looks at the bandages in hand, he whispers aloud, "Where’s Clarke?"

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Clarke feels bad. She hurts. Her whole body hurts. And people are making loud noises.

"So, let me get this straight," Cage is saying, "You’re okay with murder and genetically hijacking men into cannibals, but a little caveman sex, and your moral authority rises with a crystal fist."

"It is rape. It’s disgusting!" Dr. Tsing is practically spitting.

"Is it really? If she wants it? If she demands it? Because let me tell you, the grounder queen—"

"Clarke is not a grounder. She’s beyond counting coconuts and wearing scalps on her belt. She probably knows Calculus. "

"Splitting moral hairs. Besides, that’s why she’s getting the blue vial while Anya got the green vial."

"I can’t believe I ever slept with you."

"Don’t pretend you didn’t like it." Cage pointedly ignores Tsing’s snort. His eyes slice in Clarke’s direction. Suddenly, his teeth are showing as he takes a step toward her. "Darling, are you awake?"

Clarke’s brain isn’t working. It’s like she understands what’s she’s seeing on a deeper level—but she can’t analyze what’s being recorded. Still, as Cage draws near, even Clarke’s hindbrain wants to move back, but her wrists and feet are bound. Cage shows all of his teeth. He’s looking directly at her. Still, even Clarke is surprised by the growl that erupts from her chest.

Tsing is laughing. Cage, however, comes right to Clarke’s side despite her warning. "You’re probably feeling warm right now."

Clark is, in fact, feeling blisteringly hot. However, when he wipes at the sweat on her brow, she growls again. This time she tries to form words. She wants to say, If you take one step closer, I’ll gut you. What comes out instead is a hissed, "Issuygu."

"Tension in your spine," Cage continues. "I bet it goes all the way down to…" He draws a line in the air right down to her crotch.

Clarke would growl again, but now that he’s pinpointed the pain, she can’t ignore it as the source. This isn’t a nice throb. No, the contractions are too intense, and with each one, a shooting sensation zings down her spine and then her clit stings like someone’s stuck a knife in it. A whimper slips through her bared teeth.

"It’s all right," Cage soothes, and he begins to undo the fastening on her ankles.

"I hope she kicks you in the throat," Tsing says.

"You can leave," Cage murmurs, still giving Clarke full, aggressive eye contact. Clark stares right back. She will not be the first to blink. He will not intimidate her.

Still, the moment her left wrist is free, her hand is sliding under her hospital gown. She finds the spot and begins to rub furiously.

Tsing makes a noise, but Clarke is more focused on Cage undoing the final clasp on her right wrist. The moment it’s free, she shoves the digit in her hole. Finally, she can fight back against the waves that wrack her body. She’s just starting to find a gasping rhythm when Cage reaches forward to grab both her hands. Clarke nearly slaps them away but then he says, "I can do better than your fingers."

The front of his robe is open. He has presented his manhood to her, and Clarke finally understands what his awful eye contact was about. For a moment she considers. She takes a measure of his member. It seems about average, maybe a bit below. It’s already leaking from the tip. He’s really pale, though. And she still doesn’t like his face. She decides she definitely does not want it on her children. Still, she hurts and a test wouldn’t hurt. She explains this with, "Attova." Then she takes his right hand, balls it into a fist.

"Yes, Clarke?" Cage asks with a frown.

"Attova," she repeats, and then she shoves his fist between her legs.

"This is rather interesting foreplay." His eyes are wide and curious even as she holds it in place and starts to rub against it, using the ridges of his knuckles as her own personal joy ride.

But when he tries to draw it away, she slaps his wrist with a hissed, "Issuygu."

Less than a minute later, she releases with a gush down his knuckles. The euphoria causes her to pass out again.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

It’s at the cliff’s edge, the same cliff where Charlotte jumped, that Bellamy sees both the tire tracks in the dirt and the distant cloud of smoke. The cloud goes up and up, connecting with a white vortex that goes up into the jet stream and beyond. To space. The Ark. For a second Bellamy can only blink back and forth between the trail in the sky and the tracks in the sky. Because who has a vehicle around here? Grounders ride horses. And there aren’t vehicles on the Ark. Not vehicles that could make tracks like these. The fuck?

There are three sets of tracks, and the treads are deep, wide—like tanks. Big enough, he realizes, to carry all of his friends. Also, the tracks lead away from the Ark. Away from rules and regulations and authority and above all, away from Chancellor Jaha.

Bellamy’s people are the 100—what remains of the original number. He’s the leader of the delinquents, idiots who arrived on this dirt as children and either have died or grown up by force. Peering at the distant smoke, Bellamy draws a sour breath. They need him as much as he needs them. And so he straps one gun to his back and keeps the other aimed out front. Keeping to the shadows of the undergrowth, he follows the tracks up the mountain.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

This time when Clarke wakes up, the room is empty and the pain is back. On the table next to her, there is a rubber penis. Sniffing it, Clarke detects a bitter odor. She drops it with a clang onto the steel of the counter.

But the throbbing persists, so Clarke puts her fingers to work. Stretched back, Clarke lets her mind wonder. She doesn’t exactly remember things—she knows she doesn’t—but she has impressions. There’s the cave where she hid from the yellow rain. There’s the sense of fingers on her back followed by the falling star, the jolt of betrayal as the star claimed the cave and fingers back.

The second memory is better. There’s a body behind hers, adjusting her arms to use the weapon. This mate would make her a warrior. She remembers her fright when the gun went off. She’d never heard anything so loud. "Bang bang," Clarke whispers, though is certain there was no mating. Still, she has the image of him: sweep of dark hair, piercing eyes, and the long legs of an athlete, a warrior himself. "Attova bang bang," she decides aloud, and then she gives in to imagination.

This warrior will use his tongue first. He will trick her with soft tickles against her nub, before biting the inside of her thigh. In retribution, she will knee him in the stomach. He won’t cry like a weakling but will roll with the force of her blow until he has her pinned beneath him. He’ll push his tongue into her mouth—no tricks now—her own taste knocks away the lie—and then he’ll knee her legs apart. She’ll bite at him—at his tongue—at his lips—at his chin—but even if blood drips, he won’t stop until he’s pushing into her, and she’ll keep scratching at him, she’ll dig lines down his back and gouge crescents parallel to his spine, but she will also keep her thighs wide, and when he fills her completely, she’ll finally surrender. For a moment.

She’ll let him have two, three thrusts, and then she’ll roll them. On top, she’ll act like she’s won, with haughty laughter to match. He’ll lie back like a lazy king. But when she’s close—when her thighs starts to squeeze tight—he’ll push her off him. Then he’ll haul her back by the ass, fill her from behind and breed her as she shrieks with each thrust.

Clarke grinds her teeth and digs in her heels and the force of the orgasm doesn’t cause her to pass out this time—but it’s a near thing.

Afterwards, she spends five minutes staring at the ceiling.

When she’s finally able to get up, the pain is already coming back, but Clarke is distracted by the object on the table. It’s a pencil. Twisting it about in her hand, Clarke has another impression. She used to do this. And so she presses the silver tip to the wall and starts to draw.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Bellamy has always been good at understanding people, especially women. Sometimes, though, he wishes he wasn’t. After his dad died, his mom didn’t really have anyone to talk to. She didn’t make friends easily, and after Octavia, she avoided friendships all together. Because no one could know.

Mom read Bellamy Greek myths and there was none of that "you’re the man of the house now." No, Bellamy was Odysseus and someday they would journey down to earth and he’d be a great hero who saved them all. The story made him feel big, except when it didn’t. Mom cried all the time. His dad used to make Mom laugh, but Bellamy… all he could do was listen as Mom dated chump after chump—especially when she "dated" that Colonel so that Bellamy could join the Ark Guard.

Then of course, there was Octavia. So cute when she was small, but then she outgrew her fish tank. Octavia and Mom didn’t scream at each other—they couldn’t: someone would hear. So they hissed like serpents and Bellamy made his excuses, fleeing the gorgons' nest while dragging along the guilt that he could leave but his sister couldn’t.

When they floated Mom and jailed Octavia, it wasn’t just gut-splitting grief. There was the relief. It was so enormous that Bellamy hated himself even more. God, the fall of Troy at his back and he wasn’t ready to cast off. Marcella, this cute blond, had been flirting with him since a year ago. Before, Bellamy just never had the energy, but now there was too much. So he showed up with a flask of Nygel’s special star shine and his top button undone.

In an airlock, Marcella sucked him on her knees while Bellamy kept his eyes shut, the lip of the flask pressed against his mouth. He did not think of the way his mom’s eyes begged him to save her right before the guard hit the button.

When he came, his eyes were wet, and Marcella was making over him. There was the twitch of a smile in the corner of her mouth because she thought she had something to do with this. He let her think that for another five minutes before he asked her to turn around. She said, Whatever you need, and then Bellamy lost the last bit of his virginity fucking some girl he didn’t even like.

This trip up the mountain, though, this is his Odyssey. The trail is clear. Phosphorescent butterflies glitter in the hedges while the trees form ladders to the sky. The higher the climb, the surer Bellamy’s steps. The world seems so open, so vast. He’s not ready for the war cry or the hulking shape to charge at him.

Then again, Odysseus faced the Cyclops—Bellamy should have been ready for the Reapers.

  
********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *


	2. Chapter 2

Bellamy shoots the charging reaper in the face, but the attack is coordinated. Another tackles him from behind just as the shot goes off. Bellamy rolls so that he’s on his knees as scabbed fingers grapple for his neck. He jabs with his elbow, and the reaper’s grunt is followed by a choke of tangy breath. Bellamy wheels with the gun, raising and aiming—only for an enormous mallet to crack at the barrel of his rifle. The force of the blow sends him stumbling back. His hands dig for rocks—even a goddamn log—but then another reaper is behind him—and his yellow and metal teeth are cranked wide—

The mallet clubs him again.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

When Tsing steps in, Clarke shows the doctor her drawings. There’s Cage, at the very bottom, the guard with the full beard outside her room somewhere in the middle, and then in other places on her pyramid, Clarke has assigned rankings among the 100. Finn has already been relegated to the middle with a raven perched on his shoulder.

Tsing presses her finger to the man at the top. "Who’s this? He wasn’t with your group."

For a second, Clarke hesitates. First of all, the pain is building back up again. Her crotch is getting a bit twingy, and it’s distracting. Also, Clarke knows better than to trust Tsing. Tsing might not like Cage either but that doesn’t mean she actually wants to help Clarke. But Clarke figures that a little explanation couldn’t hurt, so she does a fast drawing of the drop ship explosion. She shows how lots of grounders die, but also Bellamy and Finn too.

"I’m sorry." Tsing presses two fingers over Bellamy’s illustrated eyelids and smears the lead down. "I was also in love once, but I couldn’t save him. Back then, I was too soft."

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

When Bellamy comes to again, he’s suspended, rocking right and left, almost like he’s in a cradle. Blades of grass kiss at his cheeks, and it takes a moment before he can make out that his wrists and ankles are bound to a pole overhead. Evening has already curtained the forest, but by the guttural murmurings, Bellamy knows that he’s still with reapers. What he doesn’t understand is why they haven’t killed him yet. Or worse.

He’s not the sole captive. When he rolls his head, he can make out a whole line of grounders trudging through the dark. Reapers with long blades form a gauntlet on the sides of the line.

The weird thing is that they’re going up the mountain, because even with the dark of the forest, there’s no mistaking the upward incline. He has a few more seconds before his head starts to pang and he loses consciousness again.

When he wakes up, it’s because he’s been tossed forward. A woman in a white lab jacket stands over him. In her right hand she’s holding a massive metal syringe with gelatinous red liquid inside; in her left is a weird radio-looking device. As Bellamy takes in his surroundings, it’s to see that the reapers are fixated on her—but not on the soft meat of her stomach or even her throat. They stare at the syringe with wide eyes and panting breaths.

She leans down to scrutinize his clothes, his face, and her head cocks to the side. "One of the castoffs from the space station," she assesses. Her accent is clear, plain English.

Bellamy glares up at her—even as blade points tick into the small of his back. "Who—the fuck—are you?"

There are two guards standing behind her with machine guns. The doctor spares a glance at him before nodding back at them. "He can’t go inside with the others, so Cerberus, it is."

Bellamy still hasn’t figured out how these clean, collected people with modern equipment are working the reapers, but there’s no doubt who "the others" are. "You have my friends."

"And if you want to see them, you’ll cooperate." To the guards, she commands, "Take him down the hall. Cell four."

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Clarke is almost at a climax when Cage brings the man into the room. Clarke closes her legs to turn and stare. For starters, his biceps are as thick as Clarke’s head. Also, unlike Cage, his gaze darts away from Clarke’s. Not aggressive. When she bends her head to examine him, however, his eyes are a lively brown, like jobi nuts. He has a full shadow lining his jaw, too. Clarke’s only complaint is that he’s too pale, but then, all the men down here are pale.

"Come on, Brenner. At least smile at her. Or are you going to just stand there?" Cage has his arms crossed over the back of a clipboard.

"I’m really not sure about this. She’s staring at me like I’m a hunk of meat." Brenner darts a look at Clarke only to turn away.

Clarke approaches him slowly so as not to scare.

"Hi," Brenner says.

" _Attova_." Clarke nods and then she takes the final step towards him to draw in his scent.

Clarke mostly smells sweat and plastic, so she grabs the front zipper on his shirt and rips at the button.

"Holy shit," Brenner says.

Clarke shoves him back against the wall. This time she holds his gaze. She nods, once. He gasps slightly but then he’s nodding too. " _Attova_ ," Clark repeats and then she drags her fingers down his shirt, runs them over the ridges of his abdominal muscles, and feels at the bulge that stiffens in his pants.

" _Attova_." She nods again. She’s not desperate enough to use Cage but she’s gotten sore enough that she could use a man. Even a complete stranger.

"What’s she saying?" Brenner asks—before choking as Clarke yanks at his belt hook.

"Not exactly sure," Cage said, his voice overly formal. "It seems all of the girls from the space station had birth control devices implanted. Interesting little devices. We left Clarke’s device in, just removing the birth control and replacing our own formula. I’m still not certain if we calibrated the dose right. The formula used inhibits processing across the _corpus callosum_ so that deeper consciousness falls to fully connect with immediate feedback. It also stimulates her amygdale, so that her lizard brain, if you could call it that, has increased blood flow and—"

Cage cuts off because Clarke has shoved Brenner down in the chair for better leverage. When she pulls him out, she gives a test stroke to make sure he’s hard enough—he definitely is—and then she straddles his lap. The man is murmuring a litany of .... _holy shit holy shit holy fucking_ … when Clarke pushes down on him.

The relief as he pushes at her walls is intense. Clarke is gripping his shoulders, nails dug in like claws, and her eyes are rolled back so far that she thinks they might fall out the back of her head.

This time, the pangs in her spine have an outlet and Clarke’s hips take on a mind of their own. She doesn’t ride Brenner so much as gallop, lurching forward in her lap and it happens fast—too fast—but she’s slumping against his chest and riding the momentary relief.

Brenner keeps jerking his hips. He’s not done yet. For a second Clarke doesn’t mind, even with the plastic smell, but then the side of his shirt is rucked up and Clarke sees them: the tubes jutting out from the skin just above his heart.

She tenses. She can’t even remember why except that the tubes are bad. And she doesn’t want someone with those tubes mating with her.

She jerks off of him.

"Hey—wait—"

Clarke would leave the room if she could, but the door is locked so instead she goes over to the wall, picks up her pencil and starts to draw.

When Brenner comes up behind her, she warns, " _Issuyudugu_."

"Maybe, you’d better let her be," Cage says, his voice less scientific than amused.

"I’m not finished though, and—"

Brenner grabs her by the shoulder and Clarke twists with the pull. She knees him in his sac.

He’s moaning on the floor like a weakling. Did he truly not see that coming? Clarke is not impressed. " _Issuyudugu_? _Issuygu_." Clarke gives an extra kick into his shin. " _Bang bang_." A weird noise goes off.

When Clarke turns to look, Cage is holding up a large metal rattle, and it’s whining in a really annoying way. Even more annoying than Brenner moaning on the floor. The way Cage holds it out, it’s like he thinks it's a shield that can stop her. At Clarke's raised brow, Cage pauses. "Huh." And this time he shakes the metal thing just like a real baby rattle.

"Woos," Clarke scoffs. She considers lobbing her pencil at him, but she doesn’t want to lose it, so instead, she holds the pencil up, slicing it in the air as a threat before going back to the wall.

This time, when she smears her fingers through the lead, it’s Mount Weather that smokes.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

From the marks on the walls, she’s been in here six days. The room that Clarke is in is very white with no window. Just a table and chair, a bench that makes up her bed. The bathroom is a corner with a toilet, showerhead and faucet that juts from the tiles. 

She’s developed a routine for herself. Every morning, after she’s relaxed herself, she does her stretches. There’s pent up energy in her muscles, so she does catty corner cartwheels or a head stand up against the wall in a way that conveniently blocks a camera with her butt. Something about the reversal in blood flow helps with the contractions. She needs to touch herself less.

Cage comes in just as she’s stepping out of her third head stand of the day. Immediately, Clarke knows something is different. First off, he doesn’t have her lunch. Second, he doesn’t sit in the chair. Because that’s been routine for the last three days. Every day he comes in and lounges in the chair, clipboard loosely hanging off his thigh. His legs are always spread, erection visible, as he talks to her. Some of it is science, some of it is about Anya (she’s pregnant with fraternal twins), but most of it is random crap of about the facility, about his dad or Tsing. Clarke always listens because there’s always the chance that she’ll learn something useful, something that can help her get out of here, but today, Cage doesn’t talk. Instead, he shrugs out of his jacket, lays it in on the chair, and walks over to her bench, patting the spot beside him.

Clarke crosses her arms and stares.

"Come. Sit. I have something for you." He takes a small metal tube out of his purse.

Clarke wonders how difficult it would be to break his neck. She’s never done something like that, but these people are weak without their weapons. It’s their weapons, even the weird rattles, that make them strong. If she did kill him, there are two guards outside the door that would retaliate.

"Look." Cage wiggles the tube. "It’s slick. It will help." He squeezes the tube and small amount of liquid oozes up in a column.

Clarke comes over to take it, but Cage draws the tube back again. He pats the bed beside her.

Clarke can only break his hand once before they tie her up again or worse, sedate her, so she sits down while fixing him with a sharp gaze.

He takes his slicked thumb and finger and urges them up between her inner thighs. It’s been three hours since she last touched herself, so when his finger pushes into her folds, the sensation catches her by surprise and she looses a sharp exhale.

"Oh, that’s right. Feels good, doesn’t it?" Cage’s voice caresses along with his fingers.

Clarke is sore. She doesn’t have wounds or blisters yet, but the pain has been getting in the way of the pleasure. Only certain angles work now, and Cage is being careful, never pressing too hard, and with the extra moisture over her clit, she starts to find her climax quickly.

Cage is still whispering. "Wanted you since I saw you. I shouldn’t have been so glad when Tsing caught you, but I was. We’d had this in the pipeline forever, and you were the impetus—and God—yeah—keep making that noise."

Her breath is coming out in small half-moans. Clarke’s hips are pumping. It’s getting good—until it’s not—when the lube starts to dry up.

Cage senses this. He draws back from her to get the tube out. Or at least that’s what she thinks he’s going to do, except that he undoes the tie on his pants instead. And before she can stop him, he squeezes the entire contents of the tube into the center of his palm, and before she can grab at his hand, he shoves his palm into his pants to coat himself.

Clarke hisses, " _Issuygu_ ," but Cage merely shakes his head, leaning into her space.

"We can play the same game you played with Brenner. Just this time, we’ll race. Whoever comes first wins."

Clarke replays his words and replays them again. Something rises in her chest, and it’s so vicious that when he crawls over her, it’s taking all of Clarke's self control not to claw his throat out.

Cage's face is an ear to ear smile. He thinks he’s won with his direct eye contact and glistening dick.

But when he grabs her thighs, Clarke says, " _Attova_ " and pushes against his chest.

"Okay, if you want to do it that way." He lets his head fall back onto the pillow before crossing his arms over his head. His erection bounces.

Clarke straddles him with like it’s everything she’s ever wanted, and then with a smile bright on her face, she pees.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

When the door beeps, Clarke is grateful that it’s Tsing that sticks her head in. But Clarke stiffens when she sees the guard at Tsing’s side—a guard with a rod. After what happened with Cage—with his fury and screams—Clarke is trusting nothing. She lowers to a crouch and grips her pencil like a spear.

But Tsing approaches her without fear. If anything, with her big eyes and small smile, she looks excited. "I want to show you someone." At Clarke’s side eye, Tsing presses two fingers to the wall and pulls them down the wall like she did the other day. "We found one of your crew."

Clarke sits up.

Tsing blinks, before motioning to the door. "I’m giving you one chance for this."

Clarke follows her out the door. The guard is at her back but Clarke pretends she doesn’t exist, focusing instead on the hallway. It runs at least 75 meters and every five meters or so there is a new door. The first few rooms that they pass are familiar medical rooms like Clarke’s own, but at the end of the hall, Tsing presses up her hand to beep another door, and there’s a short flight of steps then another line of evenly spaced doors. Only, the walls in these rooms are not white but concrete. Peering through the window slats, Clarke sees huddled shapes squeezed into the corners. From others, she sees nothing but hears moans and strangled whines.

They’re at the very end of the hallway when they meet the next set of guards. These guards all have rattles. Their gear is heavier, and even if they’re not wearing them now, masks are ready at their sides. When Clarke looks down the hall, there’s a large, reinforced door with vault wheel on the front of it.

Clarke is so intent on it that she barely hears the beep of the new door opening, but when she hears Tsing’s shocked gasp, Clarke turns to see Cage, in fresh clothes, standing in the room.

"What did you do?" Tsing demands.

"What we normally do," Cage answers back.

"That is my call. He was not on the list for Cerberus."

"But you told the guards he would be, and besides, I overrode you. He was a massive liability."

Behind them, there’s a moan of pain. Then a growl followed by a rattling of metal from a shape strapped to the bench.

"It’s not because of a liability or the greater good or anything. This," Tsing jabs a finger in the air, "is because she pissed on you and because you’re a petty dick."

It’s only when Clarke pushes between Cage and Tsing that they both go quiet.

On the bench, with gritted teeth and streams of sweat coming off both temples, is Bellamy. For a second, when he sees her, he stills, as if in recognition.

She says his name. "Belly."

He still doesn’t move. He has the same wispy brown hair and the soft smattering of summer freckles. There’s a cut across his brow, though it appears to have been bandaged. His lips are chapped and bitten. She leans down to peer into his eyes, and for a second, she thinks he might—but then he jerks forward, as if to take her down by the throat.

Clarke doesn’t allow herself to react.

She turns and exits the cell. It’s in the hallway that she makes the calculation. The guards have the rattles. Cage and Tsing have the beeps. Everyone but her has a gun.

She hurts. The area between her legs is raw from being solicited by emasculated minnows. Bellamy, though, is the final straw. They've tried to make him weak, like they are, even though that’s impossible. Because Bellamy is a fighter, and this time he's not alone. Clarke has been so good, keeping her anger clamped down. She’s been keeping it bottled, waiting for her chance, but no longer. The clawing sensation in Clarke’s spine rises to the center of her chest before spooling out, surging into her muscles. 

Clarke snaps.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don’t even know how to warn for this one? Please feel free to give me tagging suggestions in the comments. Sex and violence, and even though it's not bestiality - they're both human - it's pretty bestial. Anyway. Yeah.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Bellamy hungry. Meat or die.

But more than meat or die, JUICE or die. Juice be blood and meat but sweeter.

Then come crazy alien. Yellow hair. Blue eyes. Green dress. Red in her kick and jab. Win metal pipe from metal men. Bang. Bang. Meat fly. Blood pop. Bellamy hungry.

Noise and Juice Woman run. Noise and Juice Man no run. He whine—ready meat. Bellamy hungry. But alien not make meat. Alien has Juice!

Bellamy no get. Hand in rope. Leg in rope. Neck in rope. Bellamy beg. Bellamy die. Juice!

But alien stab juice Noise and Juice Man neck. Noise and Juice Man scream!

Not hungry?

Waste juice! Bellamy hungry-hungry.

Then Alien use silver tube. Noise! Kill meat hunger. Kill juice hunger. Bellamy scream. Bellamy head die.

Alien cut rope. Bellamy free!

Make die noise. Bellamy not free.

Bellamy hungry but shut teeth. Alien not meat alien. Alien be Juice Alien? Bellamy look-look.

Head die! Head die! Alien be Noise Die Alien.

Metal men come. More bang bang. Noise Die Alien run.

Juice? Bellamy hungry. Bellamy run too.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Clarke can’t see. She’s slinking through lantern tunnels pocketed with hungry men. Bellamy’s face is puffy, his eyes bloodshot, but the faces of these men have been twisted from the inside. Metal covers their mustard teeth. A tang of raw flesh seeps from their collective breath. Like Bellamy, they watch Clarke with wide eyes and low growls. They only back away when she cuts them down with the rattle’s cry.

On top of all of this, she knows that Tsing and Cage’s people will hunt her. And she’s hurting. The energy that pumped through Clarke’s muscles in the mountain clinic is now waning. When the roughest contractions hit, Clarke’s steps grow bow-legged. Her diaphragm clenches. It’s like the space between her legs has lost its patience. It wants feeding.

It makes Clarke stare at Bellamy. Unlike the pale men of the mountain, his skin is warm, kissed by both sun and stars. His fitted black and blue jacket makes him look more a hunter than one of the hungry brutes in the caves. Somehow, the half maniacal expression on his face doesn’t scare Clarke like it should. His hair looks feathery. The beast that rules him might kill her, and yet all Clarke can think about is the softness of his fur.

But she pushes the thoughts away. Clarke must save Bellamy. He will not be twisted.

Back in the Bellamy’s cell, Cage said, “He’ll die. He’ll die if you leave. There’s no way to save him out there.” He’d pointed at the red syringe. “You can’t wean him off the stuff. That’s not how it works.”

That’s when Clarke had shoved the syringe into Cage’s neck. Clarke was mad.

So now Clarke must get her and Bellamy somewhere safe. Somewhere she can contain him and help herself. Somewhere the mountain guards won’t find them and the yellow mists won’t cook them.

When they emerge into forest, just at the mouth of the waterfall, Clarke remembers. It was the last place they were alone together. The place where they found the guns.

“ _Bang bang_ ,” Clarke tells Bellamy, and then she leads the way.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

They breathe too heavily. Sweat drips from Bellamy’s chin and Clarke’s body shivers more with each passing moment. Before they leave the river, they stop and drink. Bellamy drinks and drinks and drinks. It’s like he can’t get enough. Clarke cups some water and runs it along the heated insides of her thighs. When that does next to nothing, she holds her fingers in the water until they’re cool and then she presses them over her clit. The temperature helps a little. It’s enough that she can calm her breath, but a splash disturbs her, and when she glances up, it’s to find Bellamy watching her with arrowed eyes.

She meets his stare, but he’s not subdued until her hand fits over the rattle. Then he huffs and falls to his haunches. With his hair smashed and damp on his brow, Bellamy is less terrifying and more like the faded memory Clarke has.

He starts walking closer to her. Clark keeps the rattle crossed over her heart, but behind her, intermixed with Bellamy’s sharp breaths is undeniably sniffing.

Her eyes are locked on the path forward, but the moment Bellamy’s breath cuts off, Clarke grinds to a halt. Her finger is on the rattle. If he’s going to attack—

But then she hears it. Something moves in the undergrowth.

The forest stills.

There’s a scuttling in the back of Bellamy’s throat, only it sounds less like fear and more like anticipation. Sinking low, his fingers claw at the earth and he scoops a sharp rock.

Clarke doesn’t know whether to ready her gun or the rattle. Her own breath is thundering in her ears. Her muscles are zinging. The pain cuts her spine, and Clarke stuffs the rattle in her armpit as she aims the gun. She almost wishes it’s the mountain men.

A black shape launches right for Bellamy. Sunlight glints on the swan swipe of it’s talons. The cat bounds twice across the short glade before charging for Bellamy’s throat. Clarke fires off a shot. Goes wide.

Bellamy twists in the air before cracking the stone across the cat’s face. When it stumbles back, Clarke aims the gun again—only to have the cat switch targets—to her.

She fumbles the shot.The rattle falls from beneath her arm. The cat looms. Clarke fires.

The shot pops it in the belly. A grumbling yowl and the creature falters, collapsing in a roll of black fur and sabertooth fangs. Clarke falls back against a tree. Then Bellamy is on the cat, stabbing the rock in its neck for good measure.

Clarke knows what’s going to happen before it does but still she groans a loud “ _Woos_ ” when Bellamy drags his sharp stone down the cat’s belly—before wrenching a handful of flesh to his mouth. For a solid minute, he’s chomping happily until he freezes and pounces.

At first Clarke doesn’t know what he’s dove for—but then she sees it. The rattle. Bellamy holds it out in front of him with bloody, grisly hands. When he turns to meet her eyes, his face is devoid of expression. He sniffs the air again and his breathing is loud. Louder than Clarke’s.

She still has her gun but she doesn’t want to shoot him.

He takes a step toward her.

Clarke raises the gun to the sky. A warning shot. Except the chamber simply clicks.

For a moment they just stare at each other. Bellamy licks his lips.

“ _Issiguyu_ ,” Clarke warns, back against the tree.

She wants to run. He’s bigger than her. Stronger, taller, crazier. But running would be death. Clarke glares at him.

He takes one step. Then another. His answering gaze is direct and bold. His gaze is the cat’s.

Clarke holds the gun like it’s a staff. She could crack his skull with it.

Yet he doesn’t pounce. He takes two more slow steps. Sniffing. Then he leans forward and as if he knows there’s a mouse hiding in a hole, his head falls right, then left. Clarke is a second from cracking the gun across his temple when he exhales a growl that is almost a groan and presses his nose to the front of her hospital gown.

His mouth is pressed right where’s she’s sore, and Clarke thinks, if I’m going to die…

Except then Bellamy licks. Right over the fabric. And at Clarke’s gasp, he snuffles in closer, lapping with broad swipes of tongue until there’s a wet patch dark between her legs. Then he switches from licking to sucking through the fabric.

For a minute, Clarke thinks, what if this a prelude to an attack? But his tongue, the rough rub of his lips through the fabric, it takes away the burn. So when Bellamy pushes her gown up, Clarke keeps the rifle ready but nearly ends up dropping it when Bellamy greedily shoves his face between her thighs and with a groan, pierces her with his tongue.

Clarke dies a small death right there. Bellamy’s teeth are scraping, even catching in the moss of her hair. His thumbs are hard in the pockets beneath her hip bones and Clarke is shaking. Tree bark bites at her back and a dead cat is still bleeding out its last in the glade, but Clarke rakes her fingers into Bellamy’s before pulling hard up. She tries to drag his tongue higher, but with a grunt, he smacks at her hands and goes back to sucking from her hole.

Clarke lets go of his hair to work her clit, and then it’s good. Now instead of being crushed by the waves, she’s riding them, grinding down on Bellamy’s face, but he doesn’t let up, lapping as much as he’s jabbing. Clark’s thighs squeeze hard. Her eyes roll back and grinding her teeth, Clarke comes so hard that she nearly passes out again.

When she woozily opens her eyes, Bellamy is paces away. In his hand, he has a mound of red flesh on offer. It’s the cat’s heart.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

They’re at the hatch when Bellamy collapses.

The cat has long since been dropped. They’ve stopped twice at two separate streams and at each, Bellamy drank a bucket full. He hasn’t peed any of it out. Instead, he sweats in streams, stars on his temples and salty drips falling from his chin. Also, he’s stopped sniffing. His breathing is hoarse and punctuated by low growls.

As he falls, Clarke barely stops Bellamy’s head from hitting the ground, but then, in her arms, Bellamy starts to shake.

We are so close, she wants to say, but all that arises from her throat is a high whine.

She keeps his head in her lap. She wipes at his brow. Overhead the sky in no longer a bright blue lake but is draining to gold riverbed. Clarke has a vague memory of the last time they were here. They were sick then too. Clarke doesn’t remember why, but she knows that Bellamy was bad then too. Clarke had to help him. He helped her too. He showed her how to fire the gun.

Bellamy stops shaking a minute later. His breathing is rough, but when Clarke tries to rouse him, he growls sharply.

Clarke has a bad feeling. The mountain people have not sought them here. There have been no yellow mists. With a rigid spine, Clarke yanks open the hatch. The ladder leads straight down. First she brings down their supplies, the rattle and the rifle. Bellamy is dead weight. She has to drag him by his heels to the edge. Then she steps down onto the ladder’s top rung and pulls Bellamy toward her. He’s burning up, even through his jacket. He also has at least ten kilos on her.

Clarke takes them down into the darkness.

They’re on the ladder’s final rung when Bellamy’s whole body spasms and Clarke is thrown back.

She lands hard on her elbow, but the growl that cuts the chamber sends her silent.

This growl is a match to the first one he gave her back in the mountain.

The light from the overhead hatch is dim, and yet Clarke can make out the rattle less than two meters away. She pushes to her knees and starts to crawl towards it, but then Bellamy skids before her, blocking her path. With the light, he’s all profile: hunched, teeth bared and spread fingers curled into claws. Clarke can’t see his eyes.

“ _Issiguyu_ ,” she snaps, but her voice trembles.

Bellamy growls again.

Slowly, Clarke rises to her knees. “Belly,” she whispers.

Bellamy deepens his crouch, and this time, when he doesn’t growl, she knows it’s coming. He lunges for her throat.

But Clarke twists, jabbing him with her good elbow.

In his next charge, he grabs for her side and she kicks—hits air—and so kicks again. This time knocking his shin. And yet he gets a fist of her gown.

Her punch cracks across his jaw, and yet, despite their falling, he holds her arm. When he bites—Clarke doesn’t scream. She can’t. Inches from her lips is the rattle, and even as Bellamy’s teeth grind down, Clarke pounds her fist on the button.

This time, when Bellamy seizes, Clarke leaves him to it while she finds rope and a lantern. After she closes the hatch, she ties Bellamy to a bench. She ties his hands and feet and neck and waist, and then for good measure, she puts a gag over his mouth.

Then she pulls up the sleeve of her gown and looks at the bite. The red crescent is jagged and bruised, and Clarke draws in a sharp breath. Her eyes water. Why does everything hurt? Why do the people that she loves get broken? Why she can’t be left be? 

She’s about to pull her sleeve back down when she notices the thorn.

Not a plant thorn. It’s pale and shiny.

Clark winces as she pulls it loose. When it’s free of her skin, she wipes it clean of blood and holds it to the lantern light. It looks like a baby syringe. The color inside is blue instead of red, but Clarke thinks it might as well be red. As another contraction quakes down her spine, Clarke pinches the thing between her fingers until it snaps. Then she throws the shards against the wall.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

By the time Clarke makes it back to Bellamy, she’s found water. The bite wound is cleaned and wrapped. Only, as she approaches, there’s an unmistakable choking sound. Clarke runs in to find foam spewing around the gag, and when she rips it off, Bellamy tries to twist—but can’t. Clarke has to untie his neck, even as she’s wiping at his mouth.

Leaving his hands and feet tied, she rolls him to the side. The choking changes to dry hacks.

Clarke wipes him down and gets him to drink water, and it’s only when she’s holding the back of his neck that she realizes how much his temperature has dropped. She covers him with blankets but it’s not helping. His whole body shivers and shakes.

She has to untie his feet again to get his pants off. Then his arms. But this time there are no growls. Bellamy lies limp, his chest is too pale, his breathing too shallow, and that scares Clarke more than anything. “ _Attova_ ,” she whispers, and then she strips off her gown and crawls in next to him.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

It’s later that night when he grows warm again. Clarke is half asleep when he leans off the bed, but as he lurches, hands over his stomach, Clarke pushes the bucket toward him, and he pukes straight into it.

“Fuhhhffft,” he mumbles, before grabbing for the water tin and chugging. There’s a carelessness to his movements that Clarke recognizes.

Tentatively, as he lays back down, Clarke tries to examine his face. She wants to see if his eyes are clear, but Bellamy won’t cooperate. He’s already drifting off. “Belly,” she whispers, but he passes out.

Clarke waits a moment and then she unties the rest of his ropes. In the lantern glow, his lashes stretch long. His hair is a matted mess. The smell of his breath is savage. And yet with a smile, she kisses his cheek. She wraps her leg between his and rolls her head onto his chest.

She sleeps too.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

When Bellamy wakes up in the morning, he feels like the seventh layer of hell. The only light in the room is from an electric lantern. Still, Bellamy can make out that Clarke is at his side. And when he shifts to get the water tin—and feels skin—he realizes they’re both naked.

He drinks the water in careful chugs.

The last thing he remembers is the woman in the white jacket—she said if he cooperated he’d see his friends. Then the hunger came. Hunger so strong that Bellamy wanted to die from it. For a second, his mind makes the connection—only to reject it—and then as the memories swirl—his fist clutches to his chest and he knows: they made him a reaper.

Bellamy’s breathing speeds. His head swims and crashes inside his skull. He’s pulling the covers off his legs, reaching for the puke bucket, when a hand grips his shoulder and Bellamy turns around. Clarke is watching him with wide, worried eyes. Pressed up on her elbow, her breasts hang full and heavy above the curve of her waist. For a minute, Bellamy is struck dumb by the sight. That is, until he sees the bite mark on her arm.

And he knows. He just does. “I did—” He points, eyes shut. “—did that.”

Instead of an explanation or better yet, advice, Clarke picks up his hand and kisses it. Then she kisses his wrist and the crease of his elbow and runs her bottom lip up his bicep. The texture sends his pulse racing. She even nuzzles her nose into his arm pit—which has to stink—before settling her hands on his shoulders and pressing a kiss at the base of his neck. When she peers up, her eyes seduce.

Bellamy should be apologizing. He should be running for help or at least scrounging for a first aid kit, but Clarke’s lips look so soft. Nothing in her face says she wants him to apologize. So when she pulls her mouth to his, he meets with her equal force.

They kiss once, twice, three times and then she shoves him down. He wants to touch her, feel the weight and texture of her breasts. He wants to squeeze the small of her waist and stick his tongue in the pocket of her navel, but Clarke’s hand pushes beneath the covers, searching, until she grips his dick.

She pumps him once, twice. Bellamy is there. He’s so there. He’s half possessed by the squeeze of her fingers.

Still, he’s thinking hand job. At best a blow job. Clarke is a nice girl. One of those strong, smart types that holds her cards close until she’s ready to reveal her move. She’s not an all-in sort of person. Except that Clarke silently pushes up, drawing her knees forward, and Bellamy’s not ready for it—he’s caught mid breath—when Clarke effortlessly slides down on him.

Bellamy chokes, and god, he’s already on the edge. It’s all he can do to find his manners, lick his fingers, and rub at her clit.

Clarke moves up and down on him with abandon, hair flying all over the place, breasts bouncing. Her eyes are closed and her teeth are gritted, and Bellamy has thought about this before. He used to think she was such a morally righteous bitch with her _The bracelets are the only way they’ll know earth is safe_ and _Revenge isn’t justice_. And yeah, she was pretty in that blond haired blue eyed princess way, but she was also steel when she needed to be. She was practically the only person in the camp who he’d known he could rely on. She’s the one that got him pardoned. It doesn't surprise him that she’s the one that saved him this time.

He pushes up to kiss her and she lets him, just once, before she rolls them. The cot is small so Bellamy’s back hits the wall, and they have to adjust, but Clarke is chuffing with soft, ghosting laughs. Still when he pushes in again, looming over her, her eyes roll back. Her smile is huge. When he slides back in, her moan sings and Bellamy is close so he tries to keep his strokes measured, but Clarke slaps a hand on the side of his ass—and so Bellamy speeds up.

The cot is shaking. Clarke’s moans are mixing with his harsh grunts, and his spine is tight, his head light, and he gives in and hammers their bodies into one.

Clarke clenches, and Bellamy feels himself literally being squeezed—and he gives in, spilling inside of her.

For a minute, he can only lie there.

God, they smell like shit. Clarke’s hair is greasy, if bright, and their faces are scratched and bruised. They look like hell. And yet, it’s without a doubt, the best sex he’s ever had. Bellamy feels so alive. He’s softening inside her, but he wants to tell her, _Don’t let me leave_.

He lies there for a minute, loud with his thoughts, but when Bellamy whispers her name, “Clarke,” his only answer is a soft snore.

So Bellamy extracts himself. It takes him a minute before he figures out that they’re at the military bunker. And when he opens the hatch and steps into the fresh air, what truly becomes clear is how much he reeks. He goes to the river and scrubs. His clothes he does in pieces and then despite the cold bite of the early autumn water, he submerges himself completely, scratching at his skin until it feels like he’s scrubbed most of the monster off.

He’s pretty sure of a few things. The rest of their friends are back at the Mountain. That’s what the doctor said. Clarke will know for sure. He’s also sure that those people in the mountain are creating reapers—which makes them the most fucked up assholes on this radioactive planet. They need a plan. Clarke will have a plan. Or at least an opinion.

Only, the minute he’s back in the bunker, Clarke is on him. She tsks at his wet clothes, and then with a smile, promptly begins to strip them off him.

“Clarke, I need to—” he starts—only for her to drop to her knees.

The cold water has seriously shrunk him, but then her mouth is hot. So hot. It almost burns, and when he buries his fingers into her blonde curls—trying to slow her rhythm—she pops off him. Holding his gaze, she grabs his hand and pulls it between her legs. She’s still so wet.

“Fuck, you’re hot,” he says dumbly.

Clarke’s eyes widen and her lips twist, and then she turns around, gripping the sides of the ladder and widening her legs.

For a second he stares at her ass. Then he grips it, squeezing both cheeks. But when Clarke gives a sharp exhale, half humping against the ladder, Bellamy doesn’t need to be told twice. He pushes in from behind.

They fuck until Bellamy’s knees start to pang from the angle, and then when Clarke falls to the floor, he finishes her that way.

She’s lying there, eyes heavily lidded, and he almost doesn’t want this to end, but they can’t fuck all day. They can’t. Bellamy has a conscience.

“Okay, we actually need to talk about what happened. Mount Weather has our friends, right?”

Clarke’s brow wrinkles, but then she smiles. It’s a silly smile, not one he’s used to singing on her, and she tickles his belly, saying, “Belly Belly Belly.”

Bellamy bats her hand away. “Worst nickname ever.”

“Belly,” she snaps back.

“Clarke, we need to talk about our friends. Are you okay?”

For a minute Clarke, blinks. She opens her mouth like she wants to say something, and then she winces. She tries again. “ _Merfught_ ,” is what comes out.

“Merfkt?” he repeats back.

Clarke’s mouth opens. Only to close. She clutches her throat.

Bellamy’s headache, which he’s been able to ignore most of the morning, suddenly feels like it’s squeezing his whole brain. He grabs her shoulders. “Clarke, they did something to you, didn't they? What did they do?”

Clarke’s eyes widen, and she stands, pushing past him. There’s a chalkboard on the wall and she moves a lantern towards it. Then she starts to draw.

From her etchings, Bellamy can make out the Mount Weather clinic. He makes out that they injected her with something. Not to make her reaper but— “What?” he asks.

She draws a picture of her next to a horn-headed Mount Weather man. He looks like an old picture of a skinny opera singer. Beneath them, she draws what are unmistakably babies.

Bellamy’s empty stomach twists. His head pounds. “Did they force you?”

Clarke grimaces and shakes her head. Instead, she sighs, as if in frustration, and starts to draw again. She draws lightning bolts coming out between the center of her legs. Then, she pointedly whimpers.

Bellamy is just starting to put it together—when Clarke is back in his lap.

But Bellamy can’t.

This isn’t—

It’s not Clarke. Not all of her. It doesn’t matter if he wants her. He’s done enough already.

He pushes away. Facing the wall, he gets dressed. Behind him Clarke doesn’t make a sound and Bellamy walks over to the cot and hangs his head between his knees. When he looks up, Clarke watches him with worried eyes.

Bellamy hates the look. Hates it. “I’m so sorry.”

Clarke pointedly arches her brows.

“I’m going to figure this out,” he promises. He has to.

Clarke answers by coming over to kneel at his feet. She lays her head in his lap—and then she pointedly whimpers as her hand slides up his thigh.

“Not working,” he mutters.

She goes and sits beside him on the cot. Knees spread, she leans back with a sigh and starts to work herself. Bellamy can’t look away.

Except then there’s the creak of the hatch opening.

Bellamy immediately goes for the gun—only to be shoved back by Clarke. Her growl is almost a roar.

Only to be met by the formal call of, “This is Chancellor Abby Griffin of the Ark. Who’s down there? Announce yourself or we’ll shoot”

The Ark is here. Clarke’s mom is here. And in recognition, Clarke drops the gun and calls up, “ _Moo_.”

Bellamy is expecting confusion—and he’s about to explain when Abby sticks her head right through the hatch with a “Clarke?”

This is when she sees her daughter, buck naked with only a gun strapped across her chest—and Bellamy, thankfully clothed, behind her on the cot.

“Clarke?” Abby’s voice is a gasp.

Clarke blinks, looking down, and then looks back and forth between her mother and Bellamy. “ _Woos_ ,” she sighs.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *


	4. Chapter 4

Mom is mad.

Clarke can tell because her smile is overly tight, and there’s the way the point of her chin arrows up that makes her look ready to head-butt the next asshole. At first, Clarke is worried that Bellamy is going to wind up as her target, because Clarke was naked with him, doing naked things, but Bellamy doesn’t answer Mom’s questions so much as he _confesses_.

After hearing how the Mountain people turned him into a reaper, Mom halts her march. She asks Bellamy a few pointed interrogatories, and utter disgust takes over her mouth. “With the facial disfiguration you described, the only possibility is RNA jacks.” At Bellamy’s blank face, she adds, “RNA jacks are the equivalent of throwing genetic shrapnel at someone’s DNA. It’s barbaric.” And as Bellamy's eyes widen further, Mom pats his back. “We’ll run a targeted demeythlation treatment when we get back.”

When Bellamy looks away with color in his cheeks, Clarke knows he’s out of the woods—though Clarke doesn’t know what she thinks about him blushing at her mom. It’s especially weird because the pain is back between Clarke’s legs and she doesn’t want her mom to know. Clarke wants Bellamy to know. And do something about it.

They’re passing through the bottom of the creek, stepping across the stones, when the wind ribbons the grasses, and a low stench gusts from the east.

The smell reminds her of over-boiled Brussels sprouts, which gives her a flash memory of the green polka dots rotating before the lavender-white moonscape. Mist becomes moss on her skin and she has the thought: I lived on a spaceship. Only, when she tries to draw up more, a deep internal ache makes the space between her eyes pinch.

A branch cracks. Clark is pushing both Bellamy and Mom down by the shoulders. The guards, blinking in confusion, raise their guns at invisible targets. Around them the forest valley is bright with patches of daylight. Giant stone faces form an audience on either slope. While no birds sing, the creek babbles. Clarke strains to hear.

“Clarke, what are you—?” Abby starts, when the screech sounds from the north.

The rest of the party twists, but the sulfur stench has lost none of its potency from the east. Up the hill, the trees thicken and blur. Most of the trees here are tall, like ancient chestnuts or redwoods, but some bent elms and scraggly pines squeeze in, too, and as Clarke peers up, they all seem to be shivering.

Only then her mom is shouting, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

At the hoarse call of her name, “Clarke!”, she breaks her focus to see Tsing, stumbling down the hill. Despite being without a radiation mask of any kind, there are no burns on her face. She’s wearing the black security uniform of the mountain men, but a maroon slash leaks from under her armpit down to her navel, and her hair, though loose, is matted with blood. She has no gun.

“We thought we could—” Tsing coughs blood. “—we thought we could be—” She takes a fierce inhale before breathing out, “free.”

“Who are you? If you have any weapons, drop them!” Mom shouts. Out in the open, her voice sounds tinny. It lacks the authority of the operating room. She has no clue what’s going on.

Tsing seems to gather herself. She’s still over 100 feet away. Her hands spread in fans at her sides and she’s looking right at Clarke. “The treatment went wrong. It was supposed to save him—and it worked. It worked on me. It worked on him—but it didn’t cure the effects of Cerberus—with his enhanced sensitivity to radiation, it made it worse, so we gave him Monaw DNA so his skin could resist but it went wrong and—”

A shot cracks the valley. Bellamy has fired, but Clarke can’t see at what.

“Something moved in the trees,” Bellamy says. “Something big.”

“He’s coming. He’s going to get me.” With a clown’s smile, Tsing closes her eyes, and says, “Our people are trapped in the lowest level of Mount Weather. What’s left of—”

A black shape barrels out of the undergrowth.

Tsing plows forward, spinning forward so that her flip in the air almost looks intentional—until she falls with a crunch onto the rock below.

In Tsing’s place now sits a creature with maroon skin and a sagging, bloody jaw. With his enormous shoulders, bald head, and complete lack of eyebrows, he doesn’t look like a person, but he’s wearing strange, turtle-shell armor and his eyes are a disturbingly human shade of brown. When they fix on Clarke, she knows: it’s Cage.

His voice is almost a gurgle and yet his words are intelligible as he tells Clarke, “I missed you.”

Clarke doesn’t think twice. She hits the rattle.

Only, instead of falling to his knees, Cage roars and jumps—at least five meters—right into a tree.

Around Clarke shots ring out. Though he’s not on his knees as he would have a day ago, Bellamy is clutching his ears, his mouth tight with pain.

Overhead Cage is moving through the trees like he owns them—and even as Mom lands a shot dead center in his chest armor, Cage doesn’t slow. He grunts, before a booming rumble that might be a laugh bounces through the leaf layers. A single word sprouts in Clarke’s mind and she shouts, “Run!”

Bellamy’s hand is in hers. Mom is at her side, eyes trained on the canopy. They’re cresting the top of the ridge when a shape drops in Clarke’s periphery—right onto a guard. The man’s head goes flying even before the shots go off. Four bullets hit and Cage merely rears back as if bee stung—and then he jumps back into the trees.

Ahead the trees thin. A gleam of silver. As they emerge onto the grass plain, Clarke’s heart jumps at the sight of the broken metal hoop. Behind her, she hears the ping-ping-crack of more shots. Another scream.

Mom is shouting, “Open the gate! Open the gate!”

Bellamy’s breathing is too loud. He’s keeping up, but normally he’d be faster.

The gate doors crack open. The gaping mouths of the guards lining the fence tell Clarke that they aren’t going to make it.

Releasing Bellamy’s hand, she wheels around to see Cage flying at them.

And she knows he’s not coming for the Ark. This is about her.

She breaks left.

Her mom and Bellamy are screaming. The five remaining guards are shoving them forward. Through the fence, Clark sees faces she knows. A tall girl with a thin nose and long black hair. Her name was a bird’s. A blackbird. No, a raven. Raven. A boy with an eagle nose. Clarke remembers a noose.

She knows her ploy works. She can hear the ripping grass as Cage change courses—pursues her.

Gun fire sings with their chase. As before, Clarke feels rage. It fuels her muscles. She’s fast.

Cage is faster.

As she round the fence along the west—she can feel the beat of his heels close in behind her. The whine of bullets, the pops of contact with his flesh, announce him. And when his hand grabs for her hair, she drops, rolling.

He careens carelessly into the fence—and for a moment, with the agony in his scream, Clarke thinks it might—

He bounces off of it with greater fury on his face. Only his left foot drags.

They’re at the end of the fence. The back barrier of the camp is the Ark. The station’s walls are made to withstand the impact of small meteorites. There’s no need for a fence. There are also no guards there to shoot at Cage. And Clarke has no weapon.

But when she tries to run back—Cage leaps out, blocking her path.

Behind her, less than ten meters away, she sees it: an airlock.

Cage is smiling, taking slow steps toward him. He says, “You can’t run. Before I was nice. So nice. But now I’ll—”

She charges him—and he’s not ready for it when she cracks the screaming rattle across his burnt knee—he falters back—before Clarke races in the other direction—toward the airlock.

The code.

What is the code.

Clarke can’t remember.

She puts her fingers to the keypad and doesn’t think. Her fingers press, tracing memory.

The pad beeps in error.

Cage catches her.

She goes face down into the hard dirt. His knees crush across her hamstrings. Clarke swings an elbow—it hits—and Cage laughs. The cabbage smell is ripe. Maroon fingers grab her jaw, yanking it, and Cage is bent down, his bloody tongue juts, and he says, “This time you don’t get to say—”

“No,” Clarke spits.

He laughs again. “I’m going to strap you to a tree and then I’m going to—”

An electrical sizzle.

Cage’s weight is suddenly off Clarke.

Mom is there with two other guards. They all hold shock batons. But the final guard is holding what looks to be a bazooka, and at Mom’s snap of, “Clear,” he fires it right at Cage.

It hits and Cage sails back—and then he’s screaming rolling through the grass. Mom is yanking Clarke up. The lead commander is saying, “Fall back. Fall back.”

And Clarke doesn’t know what they did to Cage, but he’s back on his feet again. His limp is more pronounced, and black patches now mold with the maroon of his skin—and yet with a howl of outrage, he crouches, ready to lunge.

Mom hits the button on the hatch. It closes just as Cage attacks it—with a heavy thud.

There’s another thud. A pause. Then a small thump. A final protest.

At last silence.

The gate behind them open, Mom straightens, turning to the guard with the bazooka. She says, “I want the gates reinforced. We need to extend them as high as we have materials for. I want all non-essential personnel pulled inside. Then, I want whatever weaponry we have amplified. Finally, she turns to face Clarke. “Don’t you ever—ever—do that to me again. Do you hear me?”

Clarke shrugs. She’d do it again.

Mom glares. Then wiping her eyes, she asks, “And what the hell was that thing?”

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Bellamy’s dreams are weird. He’s collapsed on his knees in the forest with Clarke spread before him. The space between her thighs seeps sweet nectar. The word RED is flashing in his mind as he drowns in the soft contractions of her muscles around his face.

Flash.

Octavia rides a chariot pulled by hunched men.

Flash.

Raven whips wires and electricity lassos his neck. Flash. Then there’s the image of the crushed city, and it’s only as Bellamy comes back to consciousness that he can distinguish that the broken structure in his mind is not Troy but the Ark.

Someone is kissing him.

Lips are soft. Her weight is pleasantly heavy. As eyes blink open, it’s to feel the slide of teeth on his neck and Bellamy wants—he wants—

“Clarke, off!”

Bellamy jumps awake to see Clarke—straddling him—with Dr. Abby Griffin holding an electronic baton in her daughter’s unchastened face. That’s when Bellamy remembers: he passed out. His last memory is the gate slamming shut behind him as Clarke sprinted for the hills and that creature that looked like a giant red penis sprang after her.

“No,” Clarke says the word with all of her usual authority.

“Clarke,” Abby warns.

Clarke looks like she’s considering whether or not to test her mom’s resolve with the baton so Bellamy pointedly sits up and pushes her off, saying to Abby, “I am so sorry. I didn’t—”

Abby snorts. “It’s not your fault if she molests you while you’re asleep. Besides, it’s not like this is the first time she’s done it.”

Clark, now at the end of Bellamy’s bed, says, “Attova,” before sliding off to sit in the chair her mom is pointing the baton at.

“Oh.” Bellamy swallows. He has to adjust his legs in the sheets so that his hard on doesn’t show.

Scrubbing at her temples, Abby sighs before meeting Bellamy’s gaze. “For the record, I ran tests on you while you were out, and you’re going to be fine. By tomorrow, the drugs should be completely out of your system. Clarke seemed to think you weren’t there long?”

“Maybe a day or two. But Clarke, she was there longer…”

Abby makes an unhappy scoff. “So far, so good. Her hormones levels have been lowering steadily since she left the clinic. She’s been remembering words...”

“But…” Because Bellamy definitely hears the “but” in her tone.

“But I compared her results to yours and while there are similarities, her system isn’t clearing the way yours did.”

“She was in their clinic longer,” Bellamy says.

Abby look down at her pad, jaw gritted, even as she says, “I’m confident I’ll be able to figure this out. It’s definitely still my daughter in there.”

“I think so too.” Bellamy casts a glance at Clarke who is now absorbedly drawing on a touch pad. Her chair has scooted a full foot closer to Bellamy than it was two minutes ago. In a way, having her close is comforting. Her face and hair are bright and clean, and she’s back in her black and blue Ark jacket. She looks like her old self. She looks beautiful. But then Bellamy thinks of yesterday morning and the way their bodies rocked in tandem. God, will Clarke hate him? He forces out an exhale.

Abby gives him a tight smile. “There are more tests I can run. Changing the DNA of an adult life form is not easily done. Especially using 21st century techniques like RNA jacks. Once the immune system is overwhelmed, yes, you can do the genetic engineering you want, but if it’s not done right, swelling and deformities set in.”

Bellamy touches his own cheek. “You’re talking about the reapers—and you think that’s what happened to that… guy?”

“The hack also leaves the body more susceptible to radiation along with genetic alterations at the somatic level. That doctor, before she died, said something about needing to fix his skin—I didn’t catch it—but whatever they did, it was a Hail Mary that went seriously wrong.”

“The walls are reinforced?” Bellamy asks.

But Abby continues like she hasn’t heard a word. “The awful thing is that we probably could have helped Mount Weather. On the Arc, we actually made advancements in gene therapeutics. We had to. Otherwise we’d be dead. Then again, that woman--that doctor--was able to leave the base, and there was no sign of irradiation on her. Not that we saw her for very long before that monster--” Abby steps away from the screen to look at her daughter, who in the last two seconds has somehow scooted her chair within three inches of Bellamy’s. “Anyway, with Clarke’s improvement so far, I’m not worried yet, though I still haven’t figured out what they did.”

It’s at this exact moment that Clarke pushes up the bed so that she’s half lying down again. When Bellamy glances over, Clarke simply tilts the touch pad screen up so that he can see.

Bellamy chokes. Pictured is a rather anatomically accurate picture of Clarke with her knees hung over Bellamy’s shoulders.

“Oh no,” Abby complains, “what’s she drawn now?”

Bellamy is saved from answering by Raven sticking her head in. “We’re getting a radio transmission from Mount Weather.” The statement is directed almost completely at Abby.

“Coming in now?” Abby demands, even as she charges toward Raven.

Raven lets her push past. “It’s on repeat.” Then, to Bellamy she says, not meeting his eyes, “And hi, Bellamy, glad to see you’re not eating anyone.”

Clarke is giving Raven a confused look, but Bellamy shrugs and answers back with a short, “Hi.” He knows what Raven thinks of him. He destroyed the radio. And then there was that awful afternoon in which they had the worst sex of Bellamy’s entire life. It’s weird to think of that prickly, cold encounter, especially now—after Clarke—which was the total opposite. Bellamy wonders—he can’t help it—if Clarke gets back to her old self, if she’ll even consider more sex. Bellamy generally sucks at relationships. Or at least, there used to be Octavia and his mom, and then there are the girls he fucks. They had to be separate. But with Clarke…

Bellamy has no idea where Clarke fits. Or if she’ll even want to.

As they enter the communications room, Bellamy stops short. Monty’s voice is coming across the channel. “May day. May day. To the Arc—to anyone—this is Monty Green. I along with forty other members of the Ark and a few hundred members of Mount Weather are trapped in the lower levels of the facility. Dr. Cage has…”

The message goes on, but the desperate description has Bellamy gripping the edge of the table. At his side, Clarke prods him. She’s drawn another picture. Thankfully, this time it’s not porn.

“Yeah, that’s Monty.” Bellamy confirms.

The lines are deep in Clarke’s brow. She still doesn’t completely remember. Except then she starts drawing again, and this time it’s a picture of Cage - looking like a giant red peen - but with a bazooka pointing at him.

“It didn’t work last time,” Bellamy says.

“What didn’t work last time?” Raven leans over to peer at Clarke’s picture.

“Pow,” Clarke answers.

“Besides the armor, that thing has to have fire retardant in its skin,” Raven mutters. “But even fire retardant has it limits.”

“Pow?” Clarke looks ready to hug Raven.

But Abby is shaking her head. “Raven, I need you to focus on the radio for now.”

“But what if that thing attacks again? And I’m not just talking about us—it could be open the mountain murdering all of our friends right now.”

Abby sighs. “We can’t do anything without a plan. I need to talk with Security first. We’ll discuss this later—after I talk to them—which I was supposed to do five minutes ago.” With that, Abby heads for the door.

Once Abby’s gone, Clarke asks, “Pow?” like it’s a question again.

Raven raises an eyebrow. “Your mom said no.”

“Can you do it?” Bellamy asks. “You have an idea.”

Raven shrugs. “Nothing is invisible. Besides, with my bum leg, I’ve been bored. I’ve been working on stuff to neutralize the acid fog as it is.”

“So you can do it?”

Raven shrugs. “I’ll do what Abby says. I’ll watch the radio—while working on the weapon.”

“We’ll need it.” Bellamy nods.

At his side, Clarke leaps forward to hug Raven. She says, “Pow,” like it’s settled, and then, as if they have their own appointment, she grabs Bellamy’s hand, dragging him toward the door. In the hallway, she’s charging toward the clinic like their life depends on it—only to grind to a halt and yank Bellamy into a closet.

For a second he’s getting smacked in the face by tubes of caulking—but then hands are suddenly in his pants. “What the—?” Bellamy starts—only for Clarke to whine—a high, keening whine—into his mouth.

He doesn’t kiss her back. It’s not a kiss. Not with the way she’s scraping her teeth up his chin.

“Clarke,” he says, a soft protest, and then, when she yanks at his belt, hard enough to bruise, he snaps, “Clarke.”

The closet is dim, but her eyes are suddenly hard. “Belly,” she says, then, with her chin trembling, she adds, “hur.” She pointedly rubs between her legs. Then she pulls off her shirt.

Her glorious breasts brim from the cups. Bellamy swallows and forces out, “If you’re hurting, we have to tell your mom.”

“No.” Clarke grabs his shoulders.

He pushes her hands away. Clarke, “I can’t.”

“No.” She wrests her hands from his only to twist—and shove him back.

Bellamy’s heel catches and he topples back. His hand catches on tubing and the whole racks of looping tubing falls with him. Before he can get them off his face—Clarke is over him. She has his wrists pinned and her sparkling blue eyes bore into his. He pushes at her hands—only to meet strong resistance. Still, he could push her off. Their breathing is loud. She would let him go.

“Hur,” Clarke repeats, but there’s less pain in her tone and more slur.

Bellamy is a bad, bad person. He’s staring at her breasts and remembering how they bounced and God, Clarke makes the best noises. Even when they smelled like animals, she still smelled good in a primal way. Except that’s the problem. This is too crazy. And Clarke isn’t 100% Clarke right now. Bellamy has to swallow and force himself to say, “What if I don’t want to?”

“Woos,” Clarke snorts, and then she lets go of his hands to undo her bra. Bellamy is staring. His mouth is watering and his fingers are clawing at the concrete floor and Clarke has his number—and he can’t do this. Even if he wants to.

Only then Clarke takes off her pants.

“I can’t just…” Bellamy groans, sitting up to bury his face between his knees. He’s met with silence, but when he finally looks up, it’s to see round thighs, an even rounder ass, a tinny little peck of a naval and then those insane tits again. At the top, there’s Clarke’s plaintive stare.

She takes a step toward him, hand raised, and with her index finger, she traces the edge of border of his lips. When she pressed between his lips, he lets his mouth open. That’s when she presses pointedly on his tongue and whimpers.

“You want my…” gusts out of his mouth, but then Clarke is kissing him, and Bellamy is lost to the illogic of it.

They don’t have to fuck, but he can…

When he falls to his knees, the sound that spills from Clarke’s lips is gleeful, and she’s half thrusting against his face even when he presses his cheek to the curve of her inner thigh. Her skin is so soft and pale. Bellamy nips a spot. Clarke sighs and tries to yank him up, but he doesn’t go straight there—despite her whimpers. He kisses her hip bones. He noses at the border of her curls. The teasing might be too much though because Clarke grabs him behind the ears and jerks her mouth down—and there.

Bellamy is laughing but Clarke is panting, and when he finally gets there—when he licks her nub with a broad stroke—her hands fly back to the wall. A rope of wires crashes. Bellamy grips her ass and buries his face to suck.

Clarke thighs are quivering and the sounds she’s making are too loud, but Bellamy keeps going. He licks and sucks, and when her hips start bucking, he adds a finger.

He wants to stop her pain. He likes that she’s half-grinding, half-using his face, but above all, he needs to make her squirt. And so he goes faster, presses harder. She’s moaning loud. Her hands snarl in his hair. Her nails scratch at his cheeks. When she’s close, he can tell. She goes rigid. Her breath seizes in the back of her throat—and then just like he wants, wetness spills down his cheek—and Bellamy, now gentle, laps at the drops.

When he falls down to the floor, Clarke falls down on top of him. Her smile is sleepy and smug, and she makes a happy murmur before rolling over to start kissing, then licking, at his face.

He lets her. Until she starts working on his pants, and that’s when he says, “No.”

Clarke’s smile disappears.

“Not until you’re better.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and tries again.

Bellamy grabs her hands. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

Clarke kisses him likes she wants to swallow him whole.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Just as night is falling, Cage comes back.

Overhead, the sky is red with Clarke can see that his limp is already gone. His skin is an even deeper red. It looks bubbled in spots. Behind him, he’s dragging something. Someone.

Bellamy is at her side, and it’s only when he gasps, “Octavia,” that Clarke remembers. The girl in the box. The girl with freckles that match Bellamy’s. It’s his sister.

Cage holds her before him like a shield. The girl’s chin is bunched, her teeth gritted. The way her fists are balled, it looks like that if she could an elbow free—she’d throw a punch. Still, when Cage pulls out the knife—the girl flails—but moves not an inch out of Cage’s grip.

Cage’s eyes search the crowd. When his gaze settled on Clarke, his tongue pops out as he makes an expression that might be a smile. His voice, even deeper and more rumbling than last time, calls out, “Clarke.” Then, “Come or—” He raises the knife to Octavia’s throat—and through the air, draws a line across it.

“No.” Bellamy’s voice is soft, low gasp at her side.

Eyes on Clarke, Cage says, “Come to me by high noon tomorrow or die.”

Then with a final howl, he drags Octavia back into the brush. The trees stir only for a moment before the forest falls silent again.

Around them, the camp bursts into activity. Bellamy is talking to Mom. Some people want to talk to her but Clarke doesn’t remember them so she pushes past them. It’s in the back of the camp that she finds Raven, leg still splinted, leaning against the Ark entrance.

“Pow,” Clarke commands.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this. I had quite a few small problems with early versions that I had to work out, so hopefully it's sort of worth it. LOL. After this bottleneck, the chapters should come much more quickly. :-)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait on this. I had it 75% written for like a month but little things kept coming up and I kept tweaking small parts. Anyway, the end is very clear in my mind so should be up pronto. Thanks!

Clark wakes up to the soft rattling of the ventilation system. Her throat is dry, eyes blurry, and she has a single breath to take in the fact that she’s tucked into an infirmary cot with Bellamy (she sneaked in last night?) when her stomach twists. Hand cupped over her mouth, she stumbles out into the clinic’s fluorescence until she reaches the stall and pukes.

Clarke knows this bathroom. The last time she puked here was over a year and a half ago. She and Wills and the rest of their Ethical History study group had celebrated the end of the class with the chairman’s finest kegger—not that the chairman knew, (he’d find out later and Wills would confess and nothing would happen) and Clarke had been too wound and she’d never really drank much before and she’d emptied her stomach....

Clarke’s mind is far too clear. She opens her mouth, gasps, and then with an acid laugh, says, “Holy fuck.” Because… she _remembers_.

She rinses her mouth three times, scrubbing the paste into her teeth, under her tongue. At the mirror, she washes her face more carefully. The scabbed line that passes through her temple is from the fight at Mount Weather. From the guard she killed. The lash on her cheek is from Cage - from when he chased her to the airlock door. Then there’s the bruise on the underside of Clarke’s jaw. That’s from Bellamy. In the closet when he...

Her face is hot. Her hands are ice cold. Clarke holds them out in front of her, expecting them to be shaking, but they’re dead steady. Almost relaxed. Clarke watches herself take a breath in the mirror. In the still room, it’s almost easy to pretend it’s all not real. There’s mutant Cage with his purple fingers sweaty on the back of her neck. There’s the cravings and the contractions that split her open between her clit and her spine. There’s forgiving or not forgiving her mom—and being almost eaten the bad way by Bellamy before being eaten out the good way. There’s the fact that her friends are still in the mountain, Finn is dead, and the Arc is now on earth. There’s more. There’s mountains and valleys _more_ , but Clarke stares at her reflection and all she can think is: _I want to crawl back in bed._

Around her, the station hums. It’s familiar but different. If Clarke listens closely she can hear the distant song of the ground’s silvery grasshoppers and maybe that high whistle overhead is the wind being fluted by the station’s great steel hoop. Clarke shakes her head and pushes out into the main ward—only to nearly collide with her mother.

“Clarke.”

The dark circles under her mom’s eyes are normal enough, but her mom’s hair starts with greasy roots and ends in a flyaway ponytail. Her lab jacket is stained and wrinkled. Mom believes that being a leader requires keeping up appearances. Clarke’s instinct is to worriedly respond, “ _Mom_ ,” but she doesn’t. Instead, what pops out is, “Pow?”

Her mom’s eyes crease. “We need to do another blood test.”

Clarke should say something intelligent. She shouldn’t be muttering gibberish anymore, but instead she shrugs and follows, trying and failing to put her thoughts together. She won’t show her hand just yet. Not until she figures out what’s going on.

As her mom takes the sample, Clarke asks, “Pow?” again. The Council has to have a strategy. They’re the ones with the military grade equipment and trained professionals. They aren’t a ragtag bunch of teenagers. But Mom doesn’t respond. Clarke grabs a touchpad from the counter and starts to draw. She sketches a mountain, Cage, and a giant question mark. She shoves the drawing in her mother’s face.

Mom frowns at it. “We collected a sample from a bullet that hit him. After running tests—for most of the night—I concluded that his genome is unstable. The analysis shows that he’ll destabilize in less than forty eight hours. We merely have to wait him out.”

Clarke replays the words, _Wait him out_.

No.

Clarke’s breath catches. She wants to scream. Cage said he would kill Octavia.

Mom is already back to murmuring over results but Clarke wants to slap her. Most of it is dad. Because Dad would never have been so cowed. Dad would pronounce “My girls!” the second he came in through the door and kiss them both. He told Clarke her drawings were amazing even when they were stick figures, and when they actually got good, he’d quietly smile at her and say, “We need that. We need people who make the world beautiful, who see it in different ways.” He was forgetful. He always left his shoes blocking the front door and he’d fall asleep bent over his desk, where they’d wake him up and make fun of his drool in the morning. He loved them. How could she?

Then there’s the fact that Clarke knows she will forgive her mother, as in it’s only a matter of time. Clarke has so few left now. Just Mom. Maybe Bellamy. Finn is dead. Raven is complicated. Murphy is evil. The rest of her friends are trapped in the mountain. Somehow that makes Clarke even angrier so she points toward Monty and Jasper and Octavia.“Pow,” she repeats. Then, “Monty. Jasper. Octavia.”

Her mom pauses to scrutinize Clarke’s face—Clarke hasn’t used names quite like that before—and Clarke stares back blankly until her mom turns back to the machine. “We lost two more guards last night. Cage caught them trying to bypass him up to the mountain. Were their lives worth less than Octavia’s? I can’t tell that to their families. Not when if we’d waited two days, they’d still be alive.”

“Me,” Clarke insists with a finger in the center of her chest, “Pow,” because it’s not about risking the lives of those guards. It’s about Cage wanting Clarke.

“Clarke, you can’t even speak in full sentences. Much less…” She picks up a clipboard. “...I just got you back.”

Clarke is on the verge of blurting, “Did you?” when Kane strides into the room with a harried, “Abby,” before pausing as he takes in Clarke. “How’s she doing?”

Clark lets her back fall against the wall with a thump. Kane probably talked Mom into the do-nothing decision. Kane is the most calculated person that Clarke knows. Her father hated him.

Mom, though, gives Kane an appreciative smile. “The analysis will be done in an hour or so.”

“I was just out checking the perimeter. So far, all is clear. Human eyes aren’t nocturnal, so maybe our monster has gone in for the night.”

“They did modify the aural cavities in the ‘reapers’ that they captured,” Mom says. “Though, genetically speaking, the eyes are the hardest to modify without blindness resulting...”

They are so chummy, even a bit flirtatious with their proximity and sly smiles. Clarke has her nails scratching on the touch pad. Before she gives herself away, she slips out, heading down the hall. The station clock overhead says it’s 4:09. Three hours until daylight.

Mom is right. It’s not fair to those guards and their families, but they’re not the person who’s on the monster’s list of demands. Clarke can’t just sit still. She has to save her friends. She has to fight. It’s her responsibility, even if it might be the stupidest thing she’s ever done, even stupider than getting herself caught by Tsing in Mount Weather. The vertical scab on her forearm is still bright pink. And maybe she’s not fully healed, maybe Clarke still has some of the primal instinct driving her. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Clarke needs an electric baton. She needs Raven’s weapon, and if she’s going to reach the mountain alive, she needs to be savage, ruthless, cunning.

She gets the baton easy enough. The weapon she finds in the shop with wires twisted over the top like a bow. Thank you, Raven. The last thing she needs is the rattle - or the pitch device - or whatever you call it. It’s in her jacket in Bellamy’s room. When the door latches behind her, the room is pitch dark. Clarke’s eyes aren’t adjusted, and so she has to feel her way to the bedside where her pants should be. It’s as she paws at the floor beside the bed that there’s the shift in Bellamy’s breathing. Then the creak of the bunk and the side lamp clicks on.

“Clarke?” Bellamy has one eye squinted open. He’s also shirtless and as Clarke follows the line of his torso to the top of his hip—he’s not even wearing underwear.

She’s staring. Partially because he looks so warm and firm. Partially because his hair is a wispy nimbus cloud and yeah, she did that. Partially because Clarke had always steeled her thoughts of Bellamy in a “yeah, he’s hot, but he’s slept with half the camp, and probably only so-so in bed.” Because they’d started to become _friends_ and Clarke needed walls. Towering walls with turrets and surrounding moats.

But now there are no walls. Bellamy is two feet away, swaddled in a thin sheet. Clarke knows the wet texture of his tongue. She knows his final groan, and she knows that when she begged him to fuck her, he kept his pants on and let her use his face.

Clarke is maybe about to die. She’s about to do this brave-stupid quest, and she should be leaving immediately. She should be running, but instead when Bellamy reaches out, asking, “You okay? You hurting?”, Clarke grabs the hem of her hospital gown and yanks it up and off. When she unhooks her bra, Bellamy’s mouth is open, though his eyes gleam in the low light. It’s funny. Bellamy is a surprise. He plays like he doesn’t care, but that’s because he cares so much.

It makes Clarke want to be stronger. She straightens, takes a breath even though she’s goose- bumped and bare in the dim light. Clarke is going to bring him back his sister. But first, she drags down her underwear and kicks it off her ankle.

She can hear the uptick in his breathing. His eyes don’t seem to know where to look. At her breasts. At her curls. When he meets her eyes, though, it’s with a smirk.

She lunges forward, trying to bite that smirk off. Her hands are in his soft hair. Their noses are at a hard angle, and Bellamy’s hands are gliding down the sides of her waist. He breaks away to mutter, “Dammit, Clarke.”

When she pulls back, he looks so happy. Clarke can’t help her own smile. His hands squeeze her ass, and this times Clarke kisses him long and deep so that they’re tongues are melting in rough presses. Bellamy breaks away with a gasp and then he’s pushing her back and his mouth is on her neck. The bed creaks. Clarke’s leg hangs off awkwardly. She’s gripping his shoulder blade like a handle. When he pulls back—she almost loses her balance.

She catches herself and she’s laughing until he dives down to lick up her thigh.

But no.

Clarke has plans. Or at least a need for basic reciprocation. So she pushes him supine and crawls down until his erection, hard and long against his thigh, is practically slapping her cheek. She licks it.

His thighs jerk and he snaps, “Fuck.”

Clarke almost laughs except that Bellamy’s dick is bobbing, almost nuzzling at her lips.

Bellamy makes a choking sound, before saying, “Move your knees, dammit.”

She doesn’t stop what she’s doing but she does let him guide guide her legs so that’s straddled more or less across his face, and she’s expectant—even half greedy for it—when he tilts her hips and pushes his tongue into her.

Clarke’s head swims. She’s worried about losing control and hurting him with her teeth. She has to concentrate to get the pressure right. That has him groaning, but then he refocuses and her lungs go flat.

They go back and forth like that—Clarke keeps waiting for Bellamy to come. He’s close. She can tell he’s close by increasing tension of his hips—but then he keeps focusing on her.

She wants him to come. She’s close too, open and crazy wet, and she wants—

Clarke pushes off him. When she flips around, his lips are bright red, wet from her. His hair is hysterical and yet he still looks so good.

Clarke grabs his dick, raises her hips, and—

“Wait,” Bellamy gasps.

The sound that emerges from her is pure frustration. Clarke has his tip at her entrance. Their thighs are hard and mashed and sticky. Clarke wants him _in_.

Bellamy’s head fall back with a groan. “You’ll hate me,” he says. “You probably already do.”

The laugh that pours is sharp, a touch insane. She doesn’t let Bellamy go. Instead, she pumps him. Once, twice, and then, arching up, she says, “Bellamy, I don’t hate you at all.” And she takes him in.

The pressure sends them both groaning. Clarke’s eyes roll back, but then Bellamy is yanking her forward. He is staring into her eyes, and when Clarke smiles back, mischievous, knowing, Bellamy laughs and says, “You bitch. How long?”

Their hips are rolling. Clarke almost doesn’t hear the question, but then she murmurs, “This morning when I woke up.”

“You okay?”

“Terrible,” she murmurs, squeezing his thighs. Jerking down hard.

He’s smiling again. “I thought you’d hate me.”

“For giving me head all the time?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes and the smirk is back when he says, “There’s a list.” His thumb is on her clit. She’s going to come any minute.

“It’s okay.” Clarke murmurs, and now she wants him on top. She rolls to the side, and he moves with her, and when she says, “Hard,” he pushes in and grips her shoulders and begins to pound. The cot creaks. Their skin slaps. When she licks his face, she tastes herself. Her hair keeps sticking to her face. Clarke’s whole spine is white hot. This might be the last sex she ever has. “Fuck. Me.”

They become the beat of a drum. Clarke has her hands braced behind her to protect her head and her teeth are gritted and sweat drips from Bellamy’s chin and god, with his teeth clenched like that he’s beautiful and Clarke is going to miss him—and this is why she needs to face Cage—

She comes just before he does. Her whole spine curled. And then he’s flattening her, face dissolved into her neck and fingers digging into her ass.

For a long moment they just lie there. Clarke glides her hands up and down his back. She kisses his temple.

When Bellamy finally lifts up to meet her gaze, it’s with a soft smile and he says, “I’m glad you’re back.”

Clarke smiles back at him until she remembers why she’s about to leave. “Are you okay? Octavia—”

He goes from relaxed to tense in a second. “The Council will do something.” Except then he reads Clarke’s expression. “What did you hear?”

Clarke can’t meet his eyes. She pushes up. “Give me one minute. I have to pee.”

“Clarke.”

“One minute.” She pecks a kiss on his cheek and pulls the hospital gown on. Then she steps out into the clinic. Her mom is still in the testing room with Kane, but in the supply closet she finds what she’s looking for.

There’s no question that Bellamy won’t let her go. Especially, when she gets back to the room and he’s standing there, with the light on, holding up the baton and the rattle.

“You’re going after them? After Cage?”

He will try and stop her. After that fails, he’ll try and go with her.

Bellamy cannot die.

Clarke shakes her head. She steps into his arms, kisses him gently, and whispers, “I’m sorry,” just as she pops the tranquilizer.

Bellamy jerks away. He’s staring at the needle in her hand, even as his balance wavers. “You can’t do this,” he bites out. “I can’t—” He stumbles back. “I can’t…” He slumps onto the bed. “Not you too.”

Clarke is being ruthless, but that’s how it has to be right now. She’ll bring him Octavia back. At the very least, her going might force the Council to act.

When she comes back from the bathroom, he’s completely out. She cleans him with a washcloth, and then she gets dressed in an actual jacket and pair of pants. After shouldering Raven’s weapon, she goes for the station’s back hatch. The same one where Cage caught her. Only, this time she remembers the code. It opens with a beep, and Clarke glides out into the moonlight.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Bellamy’s wakes up to vision of Kane shaking him. It takes Bellamy a minute to work out the question that’s repeated over and over again: _Where is Clarke?_

“I don’t know. Wait. She went after—” Bellamy forces himself to sit up. “She was going to go after Cage. I tried to stop her and she _tranqued_ me. She’s—”

“Healed. We know. Abby got her tests back. What did she say?”

“She didn’t have to say anything. It’s was 100% Clarke. She had a pile of gear.”

“We have to stop her.” This time its Abby, who strides into the room—which has Bellamy jerking the covers up. He’s still naked.

“So send a team.”

Kane scoffs. “We already tried. She’s far up the mountain by now.”

Abby doesn’t react. “Bellamy, I want to talk to you about Clarke’s tests.”

Kane suddenly goes for the door, saying, “I’ll leave you to it," and Bellamy has a bad feeling.

“The tests were how you knew she was healed.”

Abby nods. “There was a hormonal trigger needed. Whatever they did on the Mountain, they recalibrated her Arc birth control device to release the cocktail they wanted. Only, Clarke’s was removed a few days ago.”

“Uh.” Blotches of that awful, scarlet memory are still raw in his mind.

“Bellamy,” Abby says with a tight smile. “I need another blood sample.”

He braces himself. “Because.”

“My daughter is pregnant.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Posting the final three chapters over the next few hours.
> 
> I'll also add new warnings in the end note.

Up the mountain, Clarke sticks to the open meadows, even when the moonlight brightens them. Raven’s gun has started to blister both of her shoulders even as she keeps alternating it, but Clarke doesn’t dare lower it for a second. It’s on the third hilltop that Clarke meets her first destination: Tsing’s corpse.

The stench is…

The past few months of hunger and desperation on the ground have given Clarke a new comfort level with blood and guts. Watching the boys butcher ground elk doesn’t bother her at all anymore, but the state of Tsing has Clarke jerking her face away. There is no corpse’s pallor but a smoky puce color that puckers in open, already bug-infested wounds. 

But that’s why Clarke is here. Whatever allowed Tsing to walk out of Mount Weather, even temporarily protected against radiation, is what Clarke wants. She has to steady herself before she can reach down and sift through Tsing’s pocket. She pulls out a security card and at the very bottom, a small square case. When she pops the clip, there are four syringe slots inside, all labeled Z4897. One is empty. There’s no label but the liquid inside sloshes thickly, a pearl tint. 

Still half holding her breath, Clarke walks upwind. The smell has just begun to clear when she hears the first clatter of rocks.

Her first glance at the hunched shape has her raising Raven’s weapon—but her second glance, as the man steps into the moon’s glow—has her hand diving for her pocket. The piercing whine of the rattle leaves the man collapsed forward on his knees. He’s howling. It’s too loud. It will attract Cage. Clarke cuts the noise and strides forward.

It’s Lincoln. Despite the blood crusted on his newly sprung beard and the half-baked shine in his eyes, there’s no mistaking him. Like Bellamy once did, he’s watching Clarke with wary, hungry eyes, and as she approaches, he falls to his haunches as if ready to attack.

“Don’t even think about it,” Clarke says, and she holds up the rattle.

For a second, Lincoln smiles, as if laughing her off, but then the wind rustles the trees, and he stiffens. He looks from Clarke to the rattle again and some of the calculation leaves his eyes.

Clarke doesn’t know what he’s picking up. But Bellamy says he remembered everything from when he was a reaper, so Clarke hopes that some scent or repressed brain pattern is getting through the animal fog. She explains, “I’m going up the mountain to save Octavia. You have to know what that means. You love her. Also, I want to help you. You need my help.”

Lincoln sniffs, but if anything, Clarke takes it as a sign that he’s listening.

“We’re marching up the mountain. You’re going to help me. Just…” Clarke points with the rattle. “I need you to walk in front of me.” When Lincoln only stares blankly at her, Clarke jerks the rattle up towards the path and snaps, “March!”

She pops the rattle once more, and the single beep has Lincoln scrambling.

He cast an annoyed glance back at her but otherwise strides forward up the mountain. Clarke wonders how much of what she said has sunk in because his path is perfectly directed toward Mount Weather.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Bellamy’s back and shoulders are so tight that he wonders if they’ll sprout wings. Maybe he will. Maybe he can fly away like Icarus, hit the sun, and then plummet to his death. 

It would be better than Chairman Abby Griffin staring at him with this look of pure judgment.

For a second, Bellamy just wants to deny it—to not be judged. He thinks,  they just—this morning—and it doesn’t happen that fast . He knows it doesn’t. But then he remembers back in that bunker before he knew and Clarke was half nuts with her white thighs spread while he squeezed her ass and pushed—and fuck. 

Bellamy deserves Abby’s look. 

Losing his sister was bad enough, but Octavia wanted Lincoln and Bellamy couldn’t tell her no when they’d been telling her no for so long. And now Clarke is just as bad as his sister, going after the Minotaur like a lady Theseus with no strings attached. Except she’s mother fucking pregnant. Bellamy’s vision swims, and he leans forward burying his head. “I need to go after her.”

“No one is going after her.”

Bellamy glances up because Abby’s voice could not sound more bitter. “I have to.”

Abby isn’t meeting his gaze. “This morning… she was back to herself. Did she say anything?”

Bellamy’s mouth opens and closes. It takes him a minute before he realizes this isn’t necessarily about him. Clarke was furious with her mom. After Wells confessed. “She only… started talking right before she tranqued me.”

Abby nods, and this time she meets Bellamy’s gaze. “I can’t allow anyone else to risk their safety. I’m the chairman. We need basic rule of law or we will fall apart.” There’s no steel in her voice. Her tone is rote, and she’s fingering a clipboard on the side table.

“Octavia and Clarke—they’re pretty much all I have.” 

“Clarke is all I have.” And with that, Abby gives him a flat smile and picks up her clipboard. She lets it fall to her side as she walks to the door, and Bellamy is just about to say  you dropped something , when he takes in what she’s dropped.

The door closes. Bellamy holds the security card up to the light to see the gold holograph in the bottom right hand corner. He’s not 100% but from his days as a guard, he thinks its the highest level. It will gives him access to the arsenal. To any ration stores. To any exit.

And so Icarus begins his flight.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

They get along fine until Lincoln wants to go into the cave. Like Bellamy, the longer they’ve walked, the calmer he’s grown in her presence. He’s looking at her less as the pork chop and more hopefully, as if she’s his meal ticket. Clarke’s not sure the latter is much safer, but for now she’ll take it. Just—she’s unsure about going into a confined, sightless space with a cannibal.

She tentatively peers inside to discover that it’s not a cave at all. Holding up the electric baton, it casts a dim glow inside the concrete room. Still, Clarke can make out the lines of vehicles. It’s a hangar—no. The word is  garage . For ground vehicles. 

Lincoln strides forward like he knows the place. He’s not remotely wary. Clarke follows with more careful steps. The place has a rank meat smell. Reapers, she thinks, and her hand itches to squeeze the rattle in her pocket. Except she needs to hold Raven’s weapon more. Her shoulder is stinging and raw. Cage could be behind any corner. 

Clarke’s breathing is loud. Louder than Lincoln’s—which is audible five feet away. A distant skittering has her jerking to the right.

But her light reveals only a rodent.

Lincoln scoffs and doesn’t break stride. 

Clarke is about to follow when she takes in the vehicle at her side. Unlike the others, it’s not covered in dust. It’s huge, almost a tank with it’s eight giant wheels, and that’s when Clarke sees the tire tracks leading to a steel door. That back of the truck has a vault-like door. When Clarke holds up her light, it’s to see large, airlock hatches at the end of the garage. 

This is the vehicle that Mount Weather used to collect them from the launch ship. Clarke is certain. It could hold forty people easily. 

Walking toward the front of the car, Clarke reaches for the handle, pushing up to look in through the window. Keys are in the ignition.

Behind her, Lincoln seethes a low, seering growl.

Clarke twists, aiming at shadows, but the shape she sees is not… It’s not Cage.

For a second, Clarke isn’t sure. She has to hold up the baton, but then Octavia says her name, “Clarke!” Clarke shines the light in her direction, and Octavia blinks but otherwise smiles her typical  I-own-the-universe  smile. It doesn’t matter that her eyes are rimmed with smoke and her hair is lank and roped back, the girl is as beautiful as ever. 

Clarke wants to hug her. Her own breath comes out in a laugh. She’s reaching for her when Lincoln charges from his hunch in the shadows. Clarke only has a second to grab for the rattle and Lincoln falls to his knees in a puddle. 

Octavia’s smile is gone. Her breath hisses out through her teeth and her hand reaches out toward Lincoln before he snaps  his teeth and she withdraws it to cover her heart. “Yeah, they took him, so I knew this would happen, but—” Octavia jerks away, her eyes too bright.

Clarke clicks off the rattle. With her finger still on the button, she grits out, “Lincoln, it’s Octavia.”

Lincoln’s eyes lose none of their hunger. Instead, they look at Clarke as if she’s just betrayed him. 

“It’s fine,” Octavia says, nodding so vehemently that her shoulders rock with her head. “I was there when they took him. If we get access to medical supplies, maybe we can save him. Better than him being a reaper’s dinner, right? Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine. Are you…?” 

“Fine.”

Octavia is definitely not fine, but at least she’s out of Cage’s clutches. “How did you escape Cage?”

Octavia snorts, soft and low. Her eyes have yet to leave Lincoln. “He put me in the same room with Anya. I think he thought she would hate me. She’s definitely vicious and non verbal and uh pregnant, I think, but she definitely didn’t attack me. We both just hated being locked up. We stacked furniture and I stood on her back—and got a vent open. It was a tight fit—” Octavia reveals skinned elbows. Lincoln licks his lips. “—but we made it.”

“She’s not with you now.”

“She went left when I went right. She insisted with a lot of hand gestures.” Octavia’s chin is bunched and her bottom lip is sucked in. She looks away from Lincoln to meet Clarke’s eyes. “I don’t think she made it. I heard screeches as I rounded the corner. I’m not proud to say that I ran.”

“You don’t know that they got her.”

Octavia’s glare is overly reminiscent of her brother’s.

“In the mountain—did you see Jasper? Monty?”

Octavia is already shaking her head. “You are not going back there.”

“Is it any less safe than being here? You’re safe. That’s why I came. I just need to make sure our friends are safe too. My mom ran an analysis. Cage is dying. If we can all hunker down for a day or two, the problem is solved.”

Octavia frowns, flipping her hair.  “Are you sure he’s dying? He doesn’t act like it. I He’s desperate, that’s obvious. We wouldn’t have escaped otherwise, but he’s waiting for  you . He was talking about you. It made me want to puke.”

“When he had you… did he, um, hurt you?”

Octavia shrugs. “He found me in the woods. Caught my arm and threw me into a tree trunk. That hurt, but that was my only injury. How’s Bellamy?”

Clarke can’t help but wonder what Octavia thinks of her. Clarke’s slept with her brother. Clarke would like to sleep with her brother  again . “Back at camp. We should find a safe place in Mount Weather. If we can get to the clinic, we can treat Lincoln. Then we can see about contacting Monty and Jasper. We can make sure they’re safe.”

“The clinic is locked and sealed.”

Clarke holds up her access card.

Octavia shifts her weight from right to left. She looks back over her shoulder. “You have that sound device and a gun, so…”

“You wanna hold the gun for a bit? It’s heavy as hell.” Clarke offers.

Octavia smiles for the time since she saw Lincoln.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Bellamy sees red. It doesn’t happen immediately, but as he grinds step after step up the mountain, the thoughts simmer. Clarke being a fucking idiot and waltzing right to her death. Octavia also being an idiot. Yeah, she’s out of the hole beneath the floorboards, but Bellamy only let her go because she had someone else looking out for her. 

He still remembers holding his newborn sister. He’d loved her instantly. 

What if Clarke doesn’t want their baby?

That’s okay, Bellamy decides. Bellamy’s mom didn’t have the choice. Well, she only had a bad choice. So she made it and it cost her life. But Clarke is going to have a good choice.

He’s nodding to himself, sucking in a breath, when his legs are knocked out from under him.

It’s as he rolls that the pungent wave fills his nostrils and he tries to raise his rifle—

It’s kicked away.

Cage looms over him. He’s wearing the same armor as before but it hangs loose now. Cage’s skin has lost its maroon swell. Now it looks more bruised and pale than anything. And his voice is clear, a crisp hiss, when he says, “Your sister got away.” Cage presses shock batons hard against Bellamy’s temples.

Bellamy’s throat is tight. Octavia gets away and he gets caught. From the  Laestrygonians to Circe to the Scylla . Bellamy’s odyssey completely sucks. The shock batons dig into his skin and it’s like Bellamy can already feel the current crisscrossing his brain. It’s all he can manage to say, “Fuck you.”

Cage kicks him again. 

The tang of blood stings from gums. Then the batons shoot pain into his sides. Bellamy’s head swims. Bile rises in his throat. Another burst of pain and black overtakes his consciousness.


	7. Chapter 7

Clarke’s card works on the door with an easy beep, and they’re walking down a concrete hallway that seems to be lined with storage rooms.

Enclosed in this manmade cave, she feels the same anxiety as when she was last here. Not even the delectable food, clean sheets, and cultured words of the president could lift that feeling away.The hum of the lights is familiar, but the heavy thump of their feet on the concrete is alien. Clarke is used to the clicking-clanking of her heels on the Ark’s stainless steel floor. She’s used to the lightness of space. Being so deep underground, everything weighs. Caged in a cave like this, the people of the mountain had to be stir crazy. Like the Council on the Ark.

When they reach the elevator, Clarke asks in a low voice, “Where are they trapped?”

Octavia shakes her head, looking at the panel. Behind them, Lincoln shifts his weight from left to right. In the cave, he seemed eager, directed, but now he keeps baring his teeth from left to right. Swear shines across his brow, and Clarke recognizes the sign of detox because she saw it happen in Bellamy. The timing couldn’t be worse. Octavia might have a ready grip on the rattle, but with their proximity, all Lincoln has to do is lunge.

“I’m not sure taking the elevator is a good idea.” Octavia frowns, brushing past Clarke. At the end of the hallway, she finds a stairwell door—only to find it locked. “Your card.”

On the next floor, there’s the clinic. The hallway to the ward and operating room are through the door behind the small reception desk, and for a second, Clarke is afraid that her card isn’t going to work, but Tsing must have had full access, because once again the bolt clicks open. They pass the ward and then they’re in the pharmaceutical lab. There’s the front room with the lines of shelves, but when Clarke checks the fridge. It’s all normal antibiotics and fungal creams. But then she spots the door that reads, No Admittance. The card works, and at the sight of the fridge of vials—Lincoln makes a high pitched squeal. He’s only stopped when Clarke shoves the rattle in his face.

But he doesn’t snap or try and bite her. Instead, he drops to his haunches, jaws agape, and eyes rolled back, like a trained circus lion.

There are lots of vials, but she finds the tranquilizers next to a stack of morphine that would have been worth a small fortune on the Ark. In a box with “Cerberus” handwritten on the front are the red vials. There’s no sign of a match to Tsing’s Z4897 syringes. But there is a small box with a heart on it with blue and green vials. Clarke considers throwing that box across the room, but instead she grabs a red vial along with a clear, and as Lincoln closes his eyes, an easy smile on his face—she plugs the tranquilizer into his neck.

His long sigh is short lived. His eyes widen in a fury. He looks at the red vial still in Clarke’s hand. His screech of betrayal splits the room.

“Octavia, use the sound—” Clarke scrambles back.

But Lincoln doesn’t go for Clarke. He charges for Octavia, knocking her back into the metal shelves. The rattle goes flying out of Octavia’s grip.

Lincoln’s head rises, teeth glinting. Sweat pours from his temples and his expression is identical to the one that Bellamy wore right before he savaged Clarke’s arm.

Clarke dives for the rattle just as Octavia shoves a square of cotton in Lincoln’s face. He grabs her by the neck—lifting her off the floor—just as Clarke’s fingers press on the rattle.

This time Lincoln doesn’t merely collapse. As he hits the floor, his whole body starts to seize. For a second, Clarke is more concerned about Octavia, whose face is white. She’s gripping her ankle, but then Lincoln’s eyes roll and white foam bubbles down his chin.

“Help him,” Octavia insists through gritted teeth.

His tongue is already bloody so they use the cotton at first, but that gags him more than anything. Luckily, Clarke manages to find a tongue suppressor on a side shelf. Octavia, despite her pallor and the odd twist of her ankle, holds Lincoln down.

It’s a long five minutes before he stops shaking. His heart still beats, though its unsteady pace has Clarke worried.  She ends up rolling in a gurney from the ward down the hall. Lowering it to the floor, she straps him down and hooks him up to fluids. Her mom would do more. Her mom would know what to do, but Clarke is flying by the seat of her pants.

It’s only then that she can pay attention to Octavia. Her ankle is broken.

“Don’t knock me out,” Octavia insists when Clarke offers the sedative. “I need to stay awake. What if he has another seizure?”

“I’ll be here.”

“No, you need to get to Monty and Jasper. Just—” Octavia looks down at Lincoln. “Is he going to survive this?”

Bellamy had a single dose, but Lincoln has definitely had more. Still, there’s a chance no matter what Cage said. “Lincoln is strong. He’ll fight this, and he has you.” When Octavia nods, Clarke stands. “I’ll get you something for the swelling, okay?”

It’s while she is searching the shelves for the right pills that she comes across the radio on the shelf.

It still has a charge. And when Clarke turns on the channel, a loud beep cracks the room in half.

Clarke nearly drops the device and then her fingers are spread across her mouth. Her eyes are locked on the metal door that leads to the hallway. What if Cage has a radio? What if Cage heard?

She tries not to breathe except her breath comes out loud. She pushes her hair behind her ears but it falls forward as she leans her ear down by the small speaker. There’s a noise. A soft scraping.

Clarke is braced for it. For the sickening cackle. For the gruesome threats. What she is not ready for is Jasper saying, “You sick son of a bitch. If you fucking think we’re giving up on them, you can shove a shock baton up your ass, you filthy piece of—”

“Jasper?”

“Cl—” Jasper cuts off, then the sounds of fumbling. Tight whispers.

Monty’s voice says, “Ark Entertainment Unit. Switch to the channel now.

The entertainment unit was on U-77. Clarke inputs the number. There’s another sharp hiss of connection and then, Monty is saying, “Clarke, we don’t think he’s in the building. He left through the west gate earlier—we heard it—but he knows this place better than us.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“Clarke!” Jasper cuts in. “He’s going to hurt _you_ if you don’t watch it. He makes gorilla noises when your name comes up. He keeps asking us questions—”

A scuffle and then Monty’s much calmer voice says, “For the moment we’re fine.”

Clark forces a smile onto her face. She’s nodding as she says, “It’s good to hear your voices. And Cage soon won’t be a problem. According to my mom, he’s destabilizing. Less than a day to live. We just have to wait him out. If you guys are safe—”

“Well, that explains it.” There’s an edge to Monty’s laugh.

Clarke pulls the speaker closer to her ear. “Explains what?”

“He set a timer on the radiation scrubbers. Less than a day. Switch channels again. Your family’s subsection.”

A-19. The name of her old home. They called it alpha prime on the Ark because the families of the councilors all lived in their quadrant. Clarke flips the channel. “How do we fix the scrubbers?”

“ _We_ can’t. We’re sealed in. We open the doors, radiation leaks in. We’re not killing anyone down here.”

“Okay. You can’t get to the scrubbers but I can.”

“What!” Jasper’s shriek blasts right into Clarke’s eardrum.

Monty takes over again. “It’s too dangerous to go by yourself. Cage has a creepy thing for you, but if the Ark can send people, then maybe.”

“They won’t. They want to wait Cage out.”

“Well,” Jasper’s voice fills the mike, “tell them that’s not an option.”

Clarke sucks in a breath. She makes herself ask, “The people from Mount Weather. How many?”

“Just over 100 left,” Monty says, “32 of them are children. We got the school evacuated in time.”

“Cage attacked,” she confirms.

A pause and then. “Don’t walk through the dining room. That’s where he did his worst work after he realized Tsing couldn’t help him.”

“Tsing is dead.”

“She led him away so we could secure ourselves down here. At first he wanted another scientist. He wanted to be better. Now all he talks about is you.”

“Okay.”

“So maybe you should stay put.”

“I’ll contact the Ark. They could have a solution we’re not thinking of.”

“Maybe…”

“Where can I radio them?”

Monty tells her how to get to the main security room. It’s there that she will find the main comm. Also, all the security cameras.  

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

“Reapers were the wrong formula.”

“Anya was the wrong formula.”

The statements slide into Bellamy’s mind as a distant dream at first. It’s a rip-rip lament like petals being shredded from a lotus. Only with each new phrase, the meaning becomes clearer, driving Bellamy awake. The air is cool on his chest and feet. He’s been stripped of his shirt, jacket and shoes. The straps, however, bite into his biceps and wrists. He’s tied to a pole, but he can move enough to lift his chin.

He has to blink blood out of his eyes to see Cage, who’s seated himself on a stool, opposite heel crossed over knee. The room is dim but Bellamy’s pretty sure they’re somewhere in the bowels of Mount Weather. A military yellow stripe bisects concrete walls. The air is dry without a trace of humidity. Plus, Cage is wearing a lab jacket now. Even more than before, he looks pretty human. Only, with no armor on, his bare skin is grey, mushroom-like with its popping veins and bruised undertone. Before Bellamy thought he looked like a giant penis, now he looks like someone dunked a testicle in ice water. His smile though is too wise when Bellamy’s eyes focus on him.

“I am the wrong formula.” Cage takes a vial out of a crystal pack. He pops the pearly syringe into his neck with a grimace before carefully returning it to the square and snapping it shut. “However, Tsing, at the very end, found the right formula.” He rolls the pack between his palms and his head falls to the side as he says, “You smell like her.”

“Are you dying or not?” Bellamy demands. He doesn’t want to think about how Cage has Clarke’s smell memorized.

Cage laughs, a really loud laugh with his head thrown back and his teeth blunt and bared. Then he says, “All I wanted is to save my people. Does that make me a monster?”

Bellamy thinks of the hydra with its multiple heads. His mind skips to Medusa and her stone eyes and snake hair. He wants to look up to the sky. He wants to reference the constellations with starlit stories, but all he sees when he looks up is dusty concrete. “God or monster, it matters how you do what you do.”

“Ah, a philosopher,” Cage snorts. “I’m just a scientist.”

“How many people have you killed in the last three days?”

“Wrong formula,” Cage sighs.

“So maybe there’s a solution. Ark doctors are good with genetics. We figured out how to adjust our biology to high levels of radiation. You didn’t.”

Cage watches him plaintively. Then he repeats, “You smell like her.”

Bellamy wants to say _maybe because I fucked her this morning._ But then Bellamy snaps his mouth shut. “Why Clarke?”

Cage hums through a smile and then he picks a radio off the shelf. He has at least eight in a row. “Because Clarke—pretty, blonde, smart and strong Clarke—has the right formula. We never do just one experiment, you know. Clarke got the blue. Anya got the green.You got the red. I get the rainbow.”

Bellamy is about to ask another question when the speaker on the radio crackles to life. And Bellamy hears Monty giving directions to Clarke—directions on where to go in the mountain.

“They just won’t shut up,” Cage laughs as Bellamy’s stomach drops to the floor.

Bellamy jerks his wrists—but the ropes merely burn against his skin.

Cage goes over to the panel on the far wall and with expert speed starts programming. “There,” he says, “everyone is set to die in an hour. Or maybe not. Let’s see if Clarke makes good choices.”

“She hates you.”

Cage walks back toward Bellamy. His simper is vicious as leans in close. “There are reapers roaming the halls and I’m not locking the door. Sorry, but you smelled like her.”

With a final punch across Bellamy’s jaw, Cage departs.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Clarke leaves Octavia with a local anesthetic in her ankle and instructions on how to handle Lincoln. Even with Raven’s gun on her shoulder, her heart pounds the whole way. She avoids the dining hall, but she can smell it. Rancid bacon. Putrid sulphur.

There’s a dead guard in the corner. No blood except a dribble from the corner of his mouth. His neck is at an impossible angle.

Clarke puts her security card to the door post haste. Inside, the room is spare except for an array of security monitors and two separate desks with wires and speakers and headsets. For a second, she can’t help but stare at the monitors, looking for movement, but there’s no life in the halls. Just crumpled figures and empty rooms. Clarke forces herself back to her task. Monty said the Ark was on channel 84, so at the comm station, that’s what Clarke inputs.

For a moment there’s only the sound of her own voice, but then Raven is saying, “Clarke? Where are you?”

“Mount Weather.”

“Holy shit. Like… holy shit.”

Clarke doesn’t have time for this. “Monty and Jasper and the people here—they’re trapped. The radiation scrubbers are down. We need someone to fix them. Right away.”

“Uhhhh….” Raven’s voice trails off as background clatter takes over.

“Clarke, what the hell were you thinking?”

“Hi Mom.”

At her tone, Mom pauses before demanding, “Where are you?”

“Mount Weather.”

“I’ve got this Abby.” This time it’s Kane’s voice, and he calmy requests, “Can you brief us on your situation?”

Clarke tells them about the scrubbers and Octavia, and what she knows about Cage, and maybe Kane is listening, but Clarke can tell—she knows her mom’s breathing patterns—that she’s not really listening. She’s just waiting for Clarke to finish.

Sure enough her mom’s judgment is, “You need to get to some place secure and stay put.”

“Are you sending a team?”

Kane says, “Based upon what you said, no one from the Ark is at risk.”

For a second Clarke can only stare at the mic. It’s a tiny little metal dot on the clear panel. Clarke wants to scream into it. Instead, she swallows and forces out, “So you’re not sending anyone.”

“We’ve lost an entire security detail,” Kane says.

“So you are okay with losing more.”

“No, we’re not okay with it. But we’re setting aside our emotions and coming at this with logic.”

“Saving the lives of one hundred people is worth the risk. It doesn’t matter if they’re stupid teenagers or jerks who live underground and suck at handling radiation.”

Mom pauses. “I don’t want to lose you. Get some place secure and wait. By my calculations, we have fourteen more hours.”

There’s no countermand from Kane. “That’s your final decision.”

“Yes,” Kane answers.

Clarke shouldn’t be feeling let down. She knew this would happen. Just Monty and Jasper had asked and Clarke had said— She knows what she has to do now. “Then I hope you’ll respect that my decision is different.”

“Clarke, you’re pr—” Mom starts.

With a pound of her fist, Clarke cuts the channel.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

She does a search on the database. The scrubbers are on the east side of the floor. She’s on the south side. She’s pretty sure that once she gets there, she just needs to start the program and run through the options.

Before she leaves, she checks the array of screens from the security cameras. Too many are whited out. A lot of them she knows must be on level 5. There’s no sign of Jasper or Monty and that’s probably a good thing. But too many of the cameras on this floor are out too.

The door’s beep as she exits is loud. Her steps echo hollow.

She makes it down the first hallway with total silence. She considers going down the main hallway but changes her mind. There’s a whirring sound she doesn’t like. The light on the elevator is busted and Clarke can’t tell if the noise is from the elevator or the large vents that line the path.

The next hallway is narrower. There are more doors. More smaller inlets. Clarke is nearing the end of the hallway when she hears it. A snuffling.

She raises Raven’s gun.

It’s not Cage. It’s a reaper. Dried blood covers his cheeks and beard. As he falls to his haunches and bounces with his fingers clawed on his knees, there’s an eager sprawl to his smile. He thinks he has her.

Clarke reaches for the rattle—

She gave it to Octavia. Octavia needed it more. There weren’t supposed to be reapers in the building. On this floor. The only answer is—

The reapers lunges. Clarke doesn’t hesitate. It’s her only defense. She fires.

The hallway goes red. Heat backfires. The sprinklers pour down water overhead, but Clarke is coughing, hacking through the burn of smoke when she’s met not with one high screech, but two—then three—and then four—and she’s running but hunched shapes are before her and behind her and—

A door opens.

A rattle goes off.

Cage is dressed in a tuxedo. Gone is his armor. His skin is clearer but not the same. It sags. But he holds a rattle up high, and with a mere wince, holds up his own rattle. In his other hand is a rifle.

The reapers collapse in screams.

Clarke raises the weapon.

Cage arches a sparse brow and asks, “I promise to be nice, and would you really rather die with your final vision being your intestines pulled out?”

Clarke’s finger finds the button.

Cage holds the rattle to his chest and rolls his eyes. There’s no way she can kill him and not take out the rattle. He clicks off the rattle and around them the reapers rise to their feet. There are more now. At least three groups of five. The form a tight perimeter.

Cage steps back, opening the door to a stairwell. “I’m sorry about our chase before. Adrenaline induced mania. Drugs.” He shrugs and for a moment, he does look human. The spray of the sprinklers gives a mist to his skin and there’s a shine to his eyes that’s sharp and clear. Not the monster from before.

Clarke looks back toward the reapers.

Still complete monsters.

His right foot seems to drag. He’s gripping the doorframe for support. Cage seems to have regained his intellect at the cost of his strength. Clarke has a razor in back boot. She has a better shot against him than the reapers.

As if sensing her decision, Cage says, “Missile launcher down, please. Fire it again and you might hit a gas line.”

Clarke fires the weapon at the reapers.

There’s the howl of screams but it’s drowned out by the heavy thud as she drops Raven’s weapon to the floor.

“This way.” Cage holds open the door. His rifle is ready in his other hand. Around her the hallway is a open bleeding vein from the bodies, a long smoking cigar at the butts. Through the acid smoke, a trio of reapers still stands, watching and lying in wait. Before her, Cage stands like a butler. He’s a wolf in a mask but Clarke has no hunter coming to the rescue. She has no sword. The only path is forward. Wiping the water from her brow, she plunges into the monster’s den.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

His straps are being cut. The flat side of the blade is cold against his skin, and Bellamy doesn’t want to react to it. He doesn’t want to acknowledge any of it. His head pounds and he groans as he slumps to the floor. This is a dream. A nice one. In his nightmare, his intestines get eaten first.

A blade’s edge tips beneath his throat.

He recognizes the elegant face before him. She’s been his enemy as long as he’s known her. She’s still weirdly pretty.

“Issiguyu,” Anya warns.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woooot. Epilogue should be up in 5 minutes.

At first Anya is simply helpful. After cutting away his bindings, she finds a first aid kit to clean some of his wounds except she doesn’t use the disinfectant. She uses her tongue—on his cheek. It tickles.

Bellamy doesn’t shove her, but he does firmly press her back. “I’m good.”

“Hep,” Anya says. She points to the door and offers a hand.

They peer out into the hallway. It’s empty and quiet. Too quiet.

"I need to find Clarke," Bellamy says.

Anya goes, "Woos," but seems to agree. That is, until Bellamy tries to go left and she pulls him right. She seems to know the way better than he does, so he follows her up two flights of stairs. It's only when he's pulled into the large chamber which smells like a sewage line that he understands why: it’s a jail. The grounders are in cages.

Some of the cages are open – a whole block. From the foot of one those cages, a sunken eyed man is tipping a cup of water into the mouth of a companion at his side. By the curves of his muscles, he used to be a warrior. Before they caged him.

Bellamy forces himself to look up at the other walls. Cages are stacked up the walls on two floors. Inside are the the victims don’t move. Some must still be alive, but others are surely dead.      

"Hep," Anya points.

Bellamy needs to find Clarke and Octavia. He needs to stop Cage but the warrior says, “Find the keys,” and Bellamy is nodding.

To Anya he says, "I will get the cages open. You get the food and water."

He's not ready for Anya's deep throat kiss, and he almost topples back.

There’s an adjoining office and that’s where he searches. He finds the keys in a small box with the picture of the baby girl. Soft caramel curls frame a button nose and pearl gray eyes. Bellamy stares at the picture and feels bile rise in his throat as he walks back to the cages. He can only conclude that people get disgusting when they're desperate.

Bellamy runs from cage to cage, throwing open the doors. He has to pinch his nose to avoid the smell. Sometimes he has to close his eyes too. Dead or alive he opens every last one. He helps them slide into the floor. They are ghouls and he is a lotus eater and Anya is the water nymph who slaps their faces and spills nectar over their lips. Together, they ferry the captives from Hades' mouth.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

Cage brings Clarke into yet another laboratory. Only, this one has fume hoods lining the walls and in the back, Clarke sees the stacks of Erlenmeyer flasks corked with chemicals inside. There are large rusty, dusty microscopes, an NMR, and scales on the side counter. That part is almost familiar, except there’s also a dead body in the corner. A salt-and-pepper haired man. He’s glasses are cracked over his nose.

Following her gaze, Cage nods at the man, before sighing. “I regret that.”

Clarke doesn’t believe him. “What do you want?”

“Two things, but first…” Leaning back against a work sink, Cage pulls a small pack out of his pocket. Clarke assumes it will be identical to the set she found on Tsing’s body, but the liquid inside is a dark purple. With a wince, he plunges the needle into his vein. For a second he’s stock still, then he grabs the sides of his shirt and strips it up and off. In the past few minutes Cage’s skin has lost its pallor and taken on a glow. Now, barechested, Cage still looks swollen, but that the swelling is predominantly in the major muscle groups. A viscous layer of sweat coats him like a pearl, and it makes Clarke think of a chrysalis. Except Cage seems unlikely to turn into a butterfly.

He grabs a lab jacket off the back of ones of the chairs and slides it on with a roll of his shoulders. When he turns back, it’s with a smirk. Clarke knows he’s fucking with her. She knows this is some weird game. She’s already trapped. Why doesn’t he pounce? Can he? He looks less a monster, and far too healthy. “You’re not going to die, are you?”

“Everyone dies.”

“What’s happening to you?” she asks.

“Things,” Cage hums. His chin dips when he asks, “Do you know why you’re special, Clarke?” He puts extra emphasis into her name, cracking the k at the end. He hops up onto the counter, legs swining.

“Special.”

“So special. You’re so much trouble. Why did we waste resources on you? Why did we waste precious time?”

“You said because too many of the citizens in Mount Weather were infertile.”

“Symptom. The cause was the radiation. You offered part of the solution.”

Clarke may have been lacking in long terms memory, but she remembers her mom’s long rant on RNA jacks being ancient and so on. “We had to do gene therapy on the Arc. That’s probably what you found. We had to adjust to solar radiation on a different scale.”

“Exactly. Solar. That’s part of what we’d missed. A missing clue.” Cage’s eyes alight along the ceiling like even now he can track the sun through the floors of concrete.

“And that’s why you turned into a purple monster and rampaged the mountain?”

Cage nods slowly. “Something like that.” He lies down with his arms crossing over his head. His hips arch. The lab jacket being open, he looks bigger than he did a minute before—if that’s even possible. Clarke’s not sure that she would have noticed but she has a feeling he wants her to notice. When he turns to her, though, his expression has gone cold. “There was also the device in your arm. Slow release. All of our experiments were too fast. In fact, we were about to do the first trial when you stabbed me with the Cerberus serum.”

“Not sorry about that.”

“I wouldn’t have rampaged the mountain if you hadn’t. Still sure you’re not sorry?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t drug up girls without their permission.”

“You crawled into a grounder cage. It put us in a bind. We problem solved creatively. And you saw Tsing - you’ve seen me on the mountain, with regular doses, we can survive the radiation. It would be better if we had slow-release devices like the one in your arm though. Tsing wanted to work on that, but unfortunately, she gave me a bad dose of Monaw DNA. Didn’t go so well.”

“If you regret your rampage, turn the scrubbers back on.”

“I’d like to, but… But everyone thinks badly of me. I need an ally. I want...” The way he says ally. There’s too much curl to his tongue. His eyes seem to glint and Clarke’s instinct is to wheel toward the door. “I want you,” he finishes.

Clark can’t find her voice. She’s shaking her head, jaw set.

Color rises in Cage’s cheeks and his teeth are gritted. “I reprogrammed the radiation scrubbers. They’re going to fail in less than an hour. And if you think you can pull heroics and escape, the mountain is going to be drowned in acid fog for a day. The reapers roam these halls. Still think you’ll get away?”

Clarke needs to get the serum vials to Monty and Jasper. She needs to have Raven walk her through instructions on how to turn the scrubbers back on. She needs a goddamn rattle to crush the reapers. Her eyes go to Cage’s gun left sitting on the metal counter.

He crackles his knuckles. “Oh, and did I mention that I know exactly where your friend Octavia is sitting next to her hungry boyfriend. I just need to give him his dose and she won’t be able to crawl away fast enough.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“And then there’s your little boyfriend whom I caught marching up the mountain. I have him hanging before an open door. The reapers should pass by soon enough. So the faster you make a decision, the faster—”

“What do you want?”

He’s off the table—fast—and flying at her. He’s a concrete battering ram. Her hands are pinned. His eyes bore into hers. They’re bloodshot and… that strange brussels sprouts smell smell is back. Clarke thinks… he’s shifted.

“There’s only one way to live forever. Only one way when you’re body won’t stop changing. Bellamy likes Greek myths. Have you heard the one about Cupid and Psyche?” He reaches to the left.

For a second, Clarke flinches, afraid he’s going to hit her. Instead he hits the light.

There is darkness and bitter smell and hot, rapid breath by her ear. “You can be mine in the darkness. I’ll protect you. We’ll live together. During the day, I’ll be sweet, human. During the night, I”ll fight away the terrors. You’ll have my child—”

Clarke jerks away, but he slams her back against the wall.

The crack reverberates in her skull. Tears prickle. She kicks. She’s cursing but he’s yanking at her pants. She bites him.

He laughs. “Do it again, and I”ll make Bellamy watch as reapers eat his sister.”

Clarke stills.

She can’t see in the pitch black but she knows he’s smiling, and when he drops to his knees—putting his head between her legs—it’s only then that he stops.

Suddenly, Clarke’s elbows are slamming hard against the floor tiles.

The light is back on and Cage is ripping up the sleeve on her shirt. He staring at the still healing scar where her birth control device was. “At least a week. You fucked him. He filled you. Your his,” Cage’s voice is a low growl.

“Fuck you.” Clarke crawls backward until she hits a counter.

Cage rises. All of his previous guise of sanity is gone. He tears off the lab jacket and flexes his muscles. His skin is swollen red now.

“His fate won’t be a death. No, you think I’m a monster? You think reapers are monsters? You have no idea what are most vicious cocktails are.”

“No.”

“Then I’m going to come back and we’ll get that man’s thing out of you—”

Clarke freezes. That thing. Cage means she’s pregnant. Clarke’s hand flies back. It nearly knocks a bottle off the shelf.

“—and then you’ll join me in the dark. I’d rather have you willing, but we have vials for that too. There will be no summer. No light. You will be mine. We will be creatures in this cave, and our children will—”

Clarke throws two flasks at once. She’s not sure if they’re acid or base. Cage dodges them both. He looks ready to laugh—except that they both hit the wall behind him—and combine.

The explosions engulfs Cage in a red halo.

The rattle and rifle are on the counter on the other side of the room, but Clarke doesn’t go for them. She races straight for the door.

It has only just clicked shut when she hears the sudden thump of a body hitting it, and the knob is already turning as Clarke rounds the corner and pounds up the stairs.

She’s not thinking. Her mind is in her muscles. Her eyes are on the door. Her ears monitor the pounding of feet behind her. So when she throws open the door at the top of the stairs, she knows she’s going right back to where the reapers were, but she’s not expecting to see a line of sickly grounders limping down the hall. They are dead quiet, focused, but at Cage’s roar from the stairwell, they all meet her eyes.

From the far end of the hall, there’s the too familiar screech and cackle of reapers.

And Clarke knows: it’s going to be another bloodbath and it’s all her fault.

Only, there’s an answering war cry. It is female and wrathful and it’s joined by the sound of more voices. Anya still wears a green hospital gown, but she’s criss-crossed the front of it with black duct tape. White talcum dusts in her braids and lines of red lipstick turn her face into a mask of war. With scalpels in each hand, she comes racing forward. Behind her, Bellamy has a grounder on either arm, but they release him, tottering on their feet,  when he reaches for his gun.

“Cage! Reapers!” Clarke screams as she races toward them.

Bellamy has his gun aimed, but Anya keeps moving, pushing her people behind her. She passes Clarke, charging down the hall. She only halts when the stairwell door bangs open to reveal Cage at the same time that the reapers round the corner.

Cage’s skin seems to steam from his open wounds. His purpling skin makes his eyes too white. They roll madly from the reapers to the grounders, and then he dissolves into wild laughter. “You’ve made your choice then,” he jeers. “You’re all going to die.”

Except that on the far end of the hall, Anya keeps walking toward the reapers. They watch her with wide eyes, and Clarke wants to scream.  At her side, Bellamy raises the gun but then Anya in a clear, angry voice, shouts, “Issiguyu!”

Instead of attacking, the reapers crash to their knees. Their eyes are not animal but worshipful, and it makes of Clarke think of Bellamy between her legs back in that glade. There was something that had attracted him, and whatever Clarke had back then, Anya seems to have tenfold, but the reapers watch her with rapture.

Anya spins around, rage ripe on her face, and looking at Cage, she pounds her fist to her chest and grinds out, “Bang,” another pound, “Bang.”

At the call of their queen, the reapers charge at Cage.

Cage pulls a knife and he’s twisting—spinning—the first two reapers go down. But three more charge. Bellamy races forward, falls to his knee and fires off three rounds.

But like before, the shots hit, but Cage barely seems to feel them. Cage cuts right through two more reapers. One manages to chomps down on his arm but Cage’s kick sends him flying toward a tall grounder. The reaper is out cold, but the grounder, no matter the near green color of his skin, picks up the knife, and charges with a whoop.

The force of the charge knocks Cage down for a split second. But then he’s back up, though blood is everywhere. The reapers have gotten to his wounds. Bellamy’s shots have opened new ones.

Bellamy raises his rifle, too close to fire—so he swings.

Cage catches the barrel, and the way he hoists Bellamy—it’s like Bellamy with his height and muscle is a mere doll. Cage thrusts Bellamy before him as a shield and his knife edges up right beneath Bellamy’s adam’s apple.

Clarke screams, “No!” but it’s Anya’s roar of “Issuygu!” that breaks the frenzy. All of the grounders and the few remaining reapers halt.

“He would make a nice hostage, wouldn’t he?” Cage snarls, except then his other hand is moving. “Only he’d make an even better monster.” Clarke has only just seen the flash of plastic when Bellamy jerks and Cage seems to jump up—before capsizing forward.

Behind him, holding two shock batons, stands a bloody, limping Octavia. She shocks Cage again for extra effort, and then Anya is there. She has dropped her scalpels for reapers’ knives and she brings them down in a double slash over Cage’s neck.

Clarke grabs Bellamy’s hand. “Did he…?”

Bellamy points at the floor where the vial is still full.

Clarke takes a harsh breath, nodding, and then she goes over to inspect Anya’s work.

Cage’s head is still partially attached.

“Give me.” Clarke holds her hand out for Anya’s knife.

Anya stops her hacking to peer up at Clarke through a blood haze, but she wipes her face, meets Clarke’s eyes, and then says, “Attova,” before handing over the knife.

Cage’s eyes, dead as they are, still seem to mock. They still seem to say, even in death I’ll get you. Clarke looks at beautiful Bellamy with his battle stained shirt and journey of bruises. At Octavia with her weight braced against the wall. She looks at the frail grounders, and the longing, starved stares of the reapers upon Anya, and Clarke slices the knife through tendons and veins.

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

“We can’t fix the scrubbers. Cage busted them,” Bellamy is on the radio while Clarke scrolls through the program.

“People are starting to get rashes,” Monty warns.

“We have the anti-radiation vials or whatever they are—” Bellamy starts.

“Enough for a day or two at most, and even if you found the file for how to make more—there are no scientists left here who know how to make it. Cage killed them all.”

“My mom could.” Clarke is certain. The labs on the Ark’s main hoop are still intact. If they can get her the formula, then...

“Except that fucking monster coated the mountain in acid fog. A day’s worth,” Jasper spits.

Clarke frowns, and then she looks at Bellamy. “I have an idea,” she says.

  
********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *


	9. Chapter 9

Epilogue

The valley is choked with sun-tipped, late summer grass and bracken green hedge, but the mountain smokes, engulfed in a rolling fog of mustard yellow. Herds of animals crowd uncomfortably close in the open space. Chancellor Abby Griffin is so amazed that animals exist freely—deer and moose—and there’s even a horse-like creature, that she’s startled when Kane suggests shooting a couple for the base camp’s dinner.

Abby nods absently. She’s not ready to accept it. Clarke is dead. She didn’t listen, and now she’s gone. The radio connection failed and then the fog and—

A distant rumbling. Through the fog, trees shiver.

Rage boils in Abby’s veins. It’s him. 

“Man your posts!” she yells, running into the center of camp. 

Guards rush to the perimeter. Kane is at her side, binoculars aimed—and she’s about to tell him to go back inside when he fumbles his grip, nearly dropping the binoculars, before adjusting the zoom. He strides toward the edge of the camp.

“What do you—?”

Three hulking shapes break the tree line. Too big to be creatures. Machines. Vehicles.

“Men at the ready!” the commander calls. Only, then they all see the white streamers fluttering on the sides. And on the very front of the first enormous truck, as ugly as a gremlin, is the severed head of that monster who chased her daughter.

“Hold your fire!” Abby orders, racing forward, and sure enough, as the truck pulls into view, there’s Clarke—her baby—in the driver’s seat. 

Before the truck even comes to full stop, Abby is racing out the gate, running to her daughter.

She barely manages to get a kiss on her cheek before Clarke is shoving a page with formulas in her face and talking a mile a minute about the injured people in the back of the truck. 

She’s not a child anymore, Abby thinks. She finally has Clarke back but the child in her mind is gone. 

She listens to what her daughter is saying: there are people in the back of the truck that will die of radiation sickness if they don’t receive treatment. So Abby let’s herself go into doctor mode and Clarke is at her right hand, ready to help. 

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

The cramps set in when Clarke sits down to eat. At first she thinks it’s a stomach issue—she waited too long to eat then ate too fast—but then the pain is too pointed and she feels the seeping between her legs. 

She cleans herself up in the bathroom. She can’t be more than a couple of weeks now. It’s just a heavy period, though who knows what’s going on with her body with all of those chemicals they jacked her up with. She tells herself it’s a good thing. Her body’s protecting her. She wasn’t ready. She was out of her mind, and yet, she finds herself going out to the far side of the camp and sitting down on a rock. 

A family from Mount Weather are outside. They’ve already received their second dose, and their white faces are filled with marvel. Along with their child, a little boy, they’re sitting in the grass. They’re fingers are dug into the dirt, and the boy is rolling back and forth, as if memorizing the feel of the earth and the sun.

“Hope they know we ration soap” Bellamy says as he sits down beside her.

She blurts, “Not pregnant anymore.”

Bellamy’s mouth falls open. “Oh did you decide—?”

“No, it just… didn’t work.”

He’s nodding. It’s not in relief. Clarke would expect relief but his jaw is tight even as he forces a smile for her. He’s looking at the little boy now. “I mean, we’re young. Not ready. But I always thought… some day, you know?”

“Yeah?” Clarke asks. “Bellamy Blake, drop ship pimp, wants to be a dad someday?”

“Drop ship pimp?”

Clarke shrugs.

Bellamy smiles. “Is this okay? My being here? Do you want to be alone?”

The dirt beneath her fingers is soft, and Clarke shakes her head as she begins to softly draw. At first, it’s just a sun and a flower, but Bellamy reaches down and adds in two stick figures. A boy and a girl.

“I really like you,” he says.

Clark barks a laugh. “We had sex.”

“It was good—like really good—but it’s not just that… it’s you.” He staring into her eyes. He looks shy. Then he looks bold. “You want to get a cup of tea with me?”

“Tea?”

“We can talk. About normal stuff. It doesn’t have to about weapons and tactics. Or weapons and tactics are good topics, too.”

“I’m exhausted.”

“I could always tell you a bedtime story…”

Clarke laughs and shoves him, but when he stands up and holds out his hand, Clarke takes it with a terribly warm, happy feeling beating in her chest. She says, “Tell me the story of the boy who got five concussions in a single month and could still count to ten.”

Bellamy nods. “Like all good legends, it starts in the aftermath of a terrible battle…”

********* ******* ***** *** * * * * * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And sorry this took so many months but I'm so very glad it's finished! Thank you to all of you who took your time reading it as a WIP. Hopefully this final slam of four chapters makes up for it. HUGS.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional (Spoiler-ish) warnings:
> 
> No rape but the threat of rapey things. Miscarriage.


End file.
